


Fate's Warning

by ExorcisingEmily, Mrstserc



Series: Before the Fall Verse [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fallen Castiel, Gen, M/M, Self-Worth Issues, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 10:30:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 35,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExorcisingEmily/pseuds/ExorcisingEmily, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrstserc/pseuds/Mrstserc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When demonic omens appear in a community outside of Salt Lake City, the boys, Bobby, and Castiel find themselves back in the front lines of the war between Heaven and Hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Be it the Devil or be it Him_  
_You can count on just one thing:_  
_When the time is up you'll know_  
_Not just one power runs the show._  
_Are we the lucky ones saved for another day_  
_Or they the lucky ones who are taken away_  
_Is it a hand on your shoulder from the Lord above_  
_Or the Devil himself come to give you a shove._  
\- Iron Maiden, "Fate's Warning"

* * *

Within the abandoned warehouse wind finds hidden entrances, whistles and howls and whispers that echo among fallen beams and debris-covered concrete. The air within the building smells of mildew and urine and blood, and over all of it lays the indefinable stink of brackish water that permeates the region.

Other sounds mingle: low, hopeless groans of pain and harsh panting breaths, just shy of hyperventilation, and after the screaming it seems almost quiet, almost peaceful.

"I told you. . . you're too _late_. The cage is closed, you . . . "A wet, racking cough interrupts the words, "you missed your c-chance."

It was the wrong answer; or rather it was answering the wrong question. The raised hand before him clenches into a fist again, and the man presses against the leather bonds of the chair, screaming again without being touched, begging for the pain to stop. It does, abruptly; the sweetness of sudden surcease of pain is a torture of its own.

"I _know_ that, sweet-cheeks. I told you _,_ I was _on_ that ride. If I were trying to pop Lucifer again, that'd be a problem for me and I'd get myself a face-full of insane angry archangel. So very not fun." Her words are a toneless sing-song, her bootsteps ring out on the concrete, bringing her closer, and each step makes him flinch. "You know what I want to hear."

"I don't know, I don't know, I can't help you. . ." The victim is sobbing, now, broken and useless, and her hands are almost gentle as they wend fingers through his hair, like a lover's caress.

"Shh. No, you can still help me." Leaning over to level herself with his flushed, anguished face, a smile stretches across the wholesome features of his torturer, a raven curl falling into her face to obscure one of her pitch-black eyes. "See. . . I need to make a call."

The slash of the knife across the hunter's throat and gush of blood into a silver bowl ends all pain.

 

 

 

* * *

Castiel has, from the very start, been a moody taciturn bastard in his way, though one doesn't exactly tell a full powered, heavenly nuke, angel of the lord that upfront. Well, no one with any sense of self-preservation does. Dean relayed that exact fact to his face on more than one occasion in the days before his Fall, but no one (not even Dean) argues in favor of _his_ sense. As an unfathomable creature of Heaven, Castiel had been subjected to Dean's acerbic commentary on all of his less-than-social tendencies, his awkwardness, even his sulks. It wasn't until he was human that Dean began walking on pins and needles around him, as he has been for the past few days.

Now he's of half a mind to show his angel just how much he cares by socking him in the jaw and chaining him to a radiator somewhere for a few weeks if only just to keep from ever having to hear the words "I'm _fine_ " flung at him with the vehemence and anger of a particularly menacing death threat. It's less than convincing, or reassuring.

Bloodshot blue eyes glare at him from across the table of the diner, and he knows Cas has his hands flattened against the Formica tabletop to keep them steady; he can tell because the tremors aren't just in his hands. Beneath the small table, Castiel's legs are practically jumping, twitching, and their silverware jingles, coffee in their cups rippling as if caught in a perpetual earthquake. Skin clammy and uncharacteristically pale, full lips chalky white, several days' worth of scruff shadowing his jaw, dark circles beneath his eyes making them startlingly indigo, Castiel looks like some warmed-over Anne Rice vampire wannabe.

Withdrawal isn't the best look for him. Or maybe Dean just _hates_  those movies.

" _Bullshit_ , Cas." Dean has heard his share of the 'love is patient, love is kind' crap over the years but now that he's found it, he knows the truth: love's a vicious animal that likes to rip your heart out every damn day and chew it up in front of your eyes and make you _want_ it. It makes people crazy, and neither of them was all that sane to begin with. Ah, l'amour. "You haven't eaten in two days and your head's splitting."

Castiel doesn't attempt to deny either point, he simply stares at Dean from across the table with a sort of stubborn defiance that does little to hide his pain, before abruptly picking up his fork and knife. Cas spears his pancakes, each drag of the butter knife against the plate screeches like nails over a chalkboard, before he stabs the cut piece and shovels it into his mouth as if he is relishing causing it harm with each gnash of his teeth. With a glare, he spreads his hands, still holding fork and knife, as if to ask if the action will suffice.

Never has someone doing what he asked of them made Dean want to murder them more than Castiel rehabbing himself off of every narcotic, anti-depressant, opiate, anti-anxiety med, and whatever the hell else had been in the stash he'd given up. When they were snowed into a mountainside cabin for the two days after Christmas, it was okay. They'd just admitted their love for each other, just celebrated Christmas, Castiel had given Dean a promise, and they were _solid_. They both acknowledged that they were _it_ for each other, and during that stay it seemed even this challenge was something they could get through. It was just them, a bed, and no interruptions, and Dean could think of a several ways to keep Castiel's mind off of . . . well, everything but Dean. Stuck in a car together, working a case together, researching, sitting at a diner table, _that_  solution isn't an option. And PG-13 rehab isn't doing it for either of them.

Everything but the pain pills, and definitely any drug Dean couldn't identify by sight, are gone. They'd started by cutting back carefully, Dean keeping hold of the drugs for Castiel and only giving out the pain medications when he asked. Now Cas hasn't asked in two days, despite the headaches, the nausea, and despite the fact that they _both_ know he's suffering from more than just withdrawal and it's side-effects. His headaches have been getting worse, and his volume control on the 'angel radio' piping directly into his skull has gone by the wayside.

Cas is not going to ask for the drugs. Dean is _not_ going to give Castiel drugs without him asking for it. The Winchesters are no strangers to painful cold-turkey, and Castiel has gotten it into his mind that Dean is " _coddling"_ him by not subjecting him to the same brutal treatment he'd given Sam, so like the stubborn ass he is, he's decided to impose it on himself but without a panic room or restraints.

Now they've reached a stalemate. Over pancakes.

"Thank you." The words grate out of Dean as he drags a hand down his face with a sigh, shaking his head slightly and reaching out to grab the Tabasco for his eggs. Castiel's fingers brush over the back of his hand, feather-light and fever-hot, drawing his eyes back up to his angel. There's an apology there in his eyes, a sense of helplessness, and a plea.

Cas is  _trying_. Genuinely trying. And he doesn't _plan_ to bite Dean's head off. He doesn't want to, he just can't always help it.

Dean's just about to acknowledge the fact when the waitress comes by again and Castiel lowers his hand to the table again, studiously obeying Dean's longstanding rules about public contact. "Everything alright? How're the pancakes. . ." Turning a look on Castiel, she pauses, her nicotine-stained smile slipping. "You okay, mister? You look. . ."

No human being alive or dead deserves the glare the fallen angel fixes on her. Hoards of hell run from the sheer terror inspired by that gaze. Thank God (wherever he is) that Castiel can't _actually_ kill her with a look any more.

"Cas." Dean warns quietly, and beneath the table he nudges Castiel's knee, drawing the glare back to himself. He can take it. The service industry. . . not so much. As if realizing it, Castiel presses the heels of his palms to his eyes, and draws in a slow, steadying breath, nodding once silently at Dean's silent admonition, and Dean turns the full wattage of his smile up at the shaken woman, bright and meaningless as a flashbulb.

"We're okay for now. Should have two more joining us any minute, though, if you want to get the coffee ready. . ." As if they've been summoned by his mention, the bell jingles as the door opens to admit Sam and then Bobby, and after a cursory examination of the restaurant that Dean knows from experience catalogues more than just where their party is seated, the two hunters amble over to join them, both stepping aside briefly to let the waitress pass (flee) toward the kitchens.

"Morning." Dean greets his family, finally pulling the Tabasco over to himself.

"What, starting without us?" Sam teases, hooking a chair over for himself and stealing his brother's untouched glass of water.

"Got up early." Dean says with a shrug, because it's easier than explaining that Castiel's newfound insomnia drove them out of the motel room. . . and Castiel's pride is bruised enough by the perception of himself as 'weak' without going into clinical details of withdrawal.

Sam's about to quip about it, when his eyes catch on Castiel, still pressing his hands over his eyes, still pale, still breathing in the slow metronome method of control. "Cas, are you. . .?"

Dean turns to his brother, shaking his head emphatically, waving his hands in a cutting gesture, but the word spills out before Sam catches on.

". . . okay?"

The _third_ time being asked in less than five minutes seems to be the final straw. Castiel's chair scrapes the floor as he pushes himself out of it, growling something about getting some air, and Dean sighs his exhasperation, eyes flicking back to Sam as he watches Castiel storm out.

"Rough morning?" Bobby's gruff question is rhetorical, sardonic, and Dean nods slightly to it.

"Gimme just a minute, guys. I'll be. . ."

"Go." Sam agrees, the portrait of sympathetic understanding and empathy, and yeah, for half a minute Dean can almost see how it'd be infuriating as hell to have that turned on you by _everyone_. Dropping his napkin onto the table, Dean rises to his feet and follows Castiel out into the chilly morning, making his way across the parking lot.

The Impala is home; it's the safe-zone for all of them and, whether by default or by agreement not to 'wander off' any more, where Castiel can almost always be found now when he bolts rather than struggle with emotions or weakness with an audience.

Cas wouldn't ever say it, but Dean knows he misses being able to disappear on a whim and with the whisper of wings that had burned away with his fall. Wings he gave up, to be with Dean. Taking off from conversations. . . it doesn't happen often any more, but it brings with it a twinge of bitter familiarity every time that is worse than just turning around to find him gone.

Dean slides up onto the hood of his car beside his angel, and isn't surprised when Cas immediately leans into him, resting his head against Dean's shoulder. Dean doesn't attempt to push him away – not now that he's coming to understand just how much comfort Castiel derives out of simple touch. Sliding his arm around Castiel's waist beneath the edge of his jacket, Dean rests his cheek against the top of his angel's head and tugs Cas against his side, offering him support. All this misery, that's on _his_ head: from dragging Castiel down from Heaven to asking him to give up on the drugs he's used to cope with it, and they've come too far for a bit of public affection in an unfamiliar town to derail him from trying to help with the aftermath.

(The memory of San Antonio is still there, still sore, but Dean will be damned, again, before he lets some asshole tell him what he should and shouldn't feel.)

"I hate this." Castiel grumbles, voice low and graveled and pained, and Dean nods slightly, burying his nose in Castiel's hair, his words muffled there.

"I know."

"I don't want to go back in there." Castiel admits, as if he's declaring his own cowardice, and Dean brings his arm up beneath Castiel's jacket, palm rubbing slow circles into his knotted back. "I'm not fit to be around people right now."

"We all have days like that, Cas."

Silence answers him, and Dean sighs. Cas gets like this sometimes, too-quiet and too-still, as if it is a pointed answer just to illustrate that he isn't _human_ , not really, that he isn't meant to be moody and have off days and suffer sleeplessness.

"Here. Go get some _rest_ , Cas. I'll meet you back at the motel in just a bit." Reaching into his pocket, Dean plucks out the Impala's keys and turns Castiel's hand over on his knee, pressing the keys to the car into his palm, closing his fingers around them. The stillness takes on another quality, now, and only Castiel can be expressive in _motionlessness_ , calling Dean's attention to the significance of what he is doing.

He just passed Baby over to Castiel to drive on his _own_. Their home, everything they have, and he is handing it over to Castiel, without a lecture or any hesitance over Cas's trustworthiness or ability. When he raises his cheek away from Castiel's hair, Cas sits up again, meeting his eyes with an intensity that used to make him nervous, as if he is reading every thought running through Dean's head. Now it is just. . . _Cas_ , and his ability to give his focused, undivided attention.

Okay. Maybe there _is_ more to love than getting your heart ripped out. The lines in Castiel's face unknit slightly, corners of his mouth softening, blue eyes bright and warm, and in so many ways it's even more than if he'd smiled for Dean. That look is _his_ , one that Dean didn't admit to himself for years that he knew what it really meant for Cas to gaze at him that way. Cas still looks exhausted and ill and pain-wracked, but there's tenderness to his expression that makes it all worth the mess of fighting through this together. Bringing his hand up between them, Dean runs his fingertips lightly over the scruff on Cas's cheek, thumb touching the corner of his mouth, and lets the moment go unremarked because it doesn't _need_ it. "Should get rid of the peach fuzz, too, in case we have to go play cops."

Castiel hums his agreement, and presses a light kiss to Dean's thumb as if he can't quite help the motion, before sliding off the hood. There's an apology to his words, when he remembers where they are and what they're doing there. "You shouldn't keep Sam and Bobby waiting."

"Eh. They'll just assume I popped out for a quickie." Dean waggles his eyebrows at Castiel, and is rewarded with a quiet huff of amusement and a hand wrapped around his shoulder, directly over the scarred matching impression of it, pulling him off the car and against Castiel's chest.

"I don't want a quickie." Castiel's voice has dropped a register, and Dean responds to it with a grin.

"Later." He promises.

All in the name of getting Cas better. Of course. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

The waitress is fawning over Sam and flirting with Bobby when Dean slides back into his seat at the diner. Without the pressure of trying to get Cas to eat, Dean is able to charm her quickly with a smile as he asks for a warm-up of his coffee and maybe to reheat his food if it's not too much trouble. She stops before actually leaving, resting her hand for a moment on Dean's forearm. "Is your friend going to be okay? He looked pretty sick."

"My friend'll be awesome," Dean reassures her with a grin. She smiles back and takes away the cold eggs and coffee, promising she'll be right back.

Dean turns back to find his brother glaring at him from across the table, and studiously ignores the look as he steals a triangle of toast, cramming it in his mouth. He keeps a mental countdown for how long it takes long for Sam to break and start talking, and just as he's hitting one Sam hisses out his annoyance on cue.

"Seriously, Dean? You gonna flirt with every waitress you see when Cas isn't around, or...?"

"I'm not _flirting_. I'm just being my charming self. Not my fault I'm adorable."

"Here's your hot coffee and warmed eggs, Mr. Adorable." The waitress slides Dean's breakfast on the table and a carafe of coffee for their refills. "And I'm with Adorable here. We weren't flirting. No offense, boys, but I like experience." she says, shooting a significant glance at Bobby who chokes on his mouthful of coffee. "Enjoy." She walks away, throwing an extra sway in her hips . . . and it isn't for the benefit of the boys.

Sam and Dean turn measuring gazes on Bobby, then look at each other, poorly masking their amusement. "We don't wanna know."

"You idjits," Bobby growls. "Can we get to work now and stow all the flirty lovey-dovey stuff?"

Sam stifles a laugh at Bobby's expense, but drags his notepad out of his breast pocket dutifully, carefully moving Cas's abandoned meal aside in favor of table space for them, and the mood at the table shifts to business mode. "Alright, we've been tracking what looks like  signs of demonic activity in Salt Lake City, and now here in the southwestern part of Utah.  It's all pretty basic demonic stuff here, now--people acting 'out of character' violently, a hoard of toads back in December." Dean snorts at how thin that is, and Sam narrows his eyes slightly, tapping a fingertip to the paper as if Dean's insulting his research. "And a strange taste in the air. I did some phone interviews with an older couple, and they said it was like when they had nuclear fallout in the aid. Only this time, it was more sulfuric."

Alright, that does sound demonic. Dean grunts his assent to that around his mouthful of eggs.

"Tell'im the history," Bobby interjects, pouring himself a refill from the carafe on the table.

"Back in 1857, St. George was the site of one of the more inexplicable massacres of U.S. history. The Mormon militia from this town. . yes, that's a thing, Dean, this place has the oldest Latter-Day Saints Temple in the United States. . .  anyway, the Mormon Militia attacked a wagon train of people from Arkansas who were just passing through on their way to California. They kept the pioneers under siege for five days, ended up killing more than 120 people. Only 17 people were left alive . . . kids, all of them too young to talk."

Bobby pushes away his plate. "You read the reports, seems like it was completely uncharacteristic of the militia members. They were family men, 'God-fearing Mormon boys.' Some of them didn't even remember doing it. Worse, the townsfolk just let the bodies lay there there after the massacre. No burials. Just left there like some kind of killing fields: men, women, children, left to the vultures."

"That's not all that's strange," Sam explains. "The landmarks and site names are pretty interesting around here. I mean, this is St. George so you expect some religious names, but the landscape's weird too. There're a bunch of basaltic lava flows over a million years old in an area that's mostly sandstone and flood plains from the Virgin River. Red granite buttes all around an area called Purgatory Flats. The park here, Pine Valley Mountain Wilderness area, sits right on the edge of the Mojave desert and there's the largest solid piece of granite in the United States, a Laccolith, in an area where geologists say there appears to be impact cratering. Like this big ass stone just dropped there, way out of place. All of this is in the shadows of Zion National Park."

"Impact cratering?" Dean asks. ". . . This isn't more of that X-Files shit, is it?"

Sam finishes the last of his juice. "Don't know." he shrugs. "I think we need to bring Cas in on this, though, Dean. Everything else about the case is coming up demons, and he's our expert."

"No. No way, Sam." Dean shakes his head and squares his shoulders, putting his fork down and facing off against his brother. "Cas isn't ready. You saw how easily just being a little bit slow can backfire on us in Albuquerque, and he's still getting through this."

Bobby leans forward across the table, closing the distance between him and Dean so his voice doesn't travel around the diner. "Son, it's nice you've got someone in your life now, but he's a damn hunter, and an expert like you ain't gonna find anywhere else on demon crap. Let _him_ decide what he can and can't do. You ain't doing him any favors by keeping him out if _you're_ putting your neck in."

"I don't know why we can't find someone else in the hunter network to ask," Dean complains, a final hollow objection as he is already peeling some money off his roll and laying it on top of the ticket on the table. Bobby makes a decent point: he'll let Cas weigh in, and try and talk him into sitting it out otherwise. If he doesn't give Cas at least that much, he'll be setting himself up for a showdown.

Bobby scratches his blunt fingers through his beard, and makes a decision not to try and pull the wool over the boys' eyes. "Ain't no one completely reliable since Pastor Jim died, and Cas has probably forgotten more crap about demons than any of the rest of them know." That's not what has Bobby dragging his feet, though. His beard hides the press of his lips, but nothing disguises the grim tone. "Thinking you boys may need to avoid other hunters for a while. Word is, they seem to have a notion that all three of you are some kinda monsters. What with starting the Apocalypse, demon blood, and not staying dead when you're supposed to."

As far as most other hunters are concerned, Dean, Sam and Castiel may well be the next hunt on their list: they ought to start watching their backs around them. Everything's gotten worse since San Antonio, and even a crappy-ass Hunter like Rivera could plant a hell of a lot of landmines in the community.

"Don't bring up the 'monster' crap around Cas." Dean advises quietly, pressing a thumb and forefinger over his eyes before pushing out of his chair. The last thing he needs is Cas going into _that_ again in the middle of the entire drug-rehab, too. Castiel's been struggling with depression and his developing conscience since his fall, and that one. . . it's hard to argue that Castiel's redeemed himself, when he will always stack each life saved against the scores he left dead as God. Better they just avoid the topic. One major crisis at a time, that's all he asks for.

Bobby leads them out of the diner, hat tipped down to shield his eyes from the morning sun, and Dean falls in beside him on the way through the parking lot. "Can I hitch a ride back to the motel?"

Bobby shrugs, the answer obvious (like he's going to strand Dean anywhere), but Sam frowns thoughtfully at his brother's back. "Where's the car, Dean?" The puzzled tone disappears as it dawns on him, and there's something to his tone Dean really wants to tune out, when he answers his own question, holding the truck door open for his brother to slide in first. "You let Cas take Baby? By himself?"

Dean ending up in the middle starts to feel like intentional entrapment as soon as Bobby starts asking personal questions, and Sam is between him and the door. Whether they planned this or not, his family sure seems to be in cahoots in cornering him. "Did'ja get your shit sorted out like I told you to at Christmas? Or is this moodiness crap from the angel because you ain't manned up yet?"

Yep, Dean would have been out the door and walking if Sasquatch wasn't sitting there smirking at him. "Kinda personal question there, Bobby," he mutters.

"You asking for personal space, Dean?" Sam asks, stretching his arm out behind his brother and capturing him in a headlock, pulling him to muss his hair, ensuring he has absolutely no actual personal space. Sam's enjoying this too much: it's been years since they've had something good in their lives, something they could tease each other about without it coming to blows, and Dean's discomfort over actually talking about it has been a source of frustration and hilarity alike.

"Get off me Gigantor!" Dean rabbit punches his brother in the ribs, and Sam lets go with a pained oomph that still doesn't make a dent in his teasing grin. "Yeah, Bobby, guess I _am_ asking for a little personal space here. I'm taking the chance. I listened. I just... It's still… And I don't…" Dean  _hates_ this crap, and now Sam has help dragging conversations back here. Frikkin' _family,_ man. "I figured you and Sammy know, and you're the only two other people whose opinions mean a damn thing to me besides Cas."

Bobby can hear what Dean is saying right through the hesitations, and he turns a proud smile on an uncomfortable Dean. "Good on you kid." Watching him squirm, Bobby sees something else he was afraid he'd never see again after – shit, ever since Dean killed Azazel, when Dean's life became a count-down to what'd end, or when he came back from Hell and left hope behind. "Good on you."

Sam huffs, "You only say that cause you're not the one that's around when they get sappy."

Bobby gives him a stern glance, and Sam shrugs apologetically, aware he's being scolded for teasing but unable to help it. "They're _adorable_ together Bobby." He's using Dean's word against him, the bastard. Ignoring Dean's scowl and literally talking around him, Sam keeps it up. "They ended up in the back seat together on the way here, man. They kept it to PG, but I felt like I was driving my brother to the darn prom, and trust me, between us that _always_ ends up awkward."

"That was _one time,_ Sam!" Dean protests.

"It was _memorable,_ Dean! And I only had the _one_ prom!"

"Just get used to it, kid. Every couple has a honeymoon phase." Bobby chuckles. "Speakin' of which, if you boys decide to tie the knot, Dean, I better get an invite. If I get a "We eloped" announcement, I will kick your ass and add a whole new meaning to 'shotgun wedding,' you understand me?"

Dean thumps his head back against the seat back in frustration, grinding his teeth. He's convinced the trip between the diner and the motel was nowhere near this long in the morning, and that was with a pissy angel sitting in the passenger's seat. "Just please, _drop it_? If it'll make you happy and shut you up, you can be mother-of-the-groom, and Samantha here can be maid of honor. But can you just let me pop the damn question when and _if_ I'm ready without fucking talking about it in front of Cas or harassing me about it the second we're together? I'm trying to do this right. Is _everyone_ happy now? Can we please just talk about the case?"

There's a stunned silence from beside him, and about the time Dean is getting comfortable with the idea that maybe Sam _has_ decided to shut up, he's pulled around to face his brother, hazel eyes intent on Dean's. "You're _serious_ , aren't you? You're really going to ask Cas to marry you?" It's been a lot longer than six months that Sam's been sharing his brother with the angel, but never realized how far Dean was willing to go to make that clear to _everyone_.

"I don't know if I'm serious or not, Sammy, but I'm not going to go half-assed into this." Dean shrugs, and neither of them is trying to pretend this is a joke any more. "If this is going to happen between me and Cas, I gotta go all-in. And I don't even know if he'd _want_ to marry me, dude. We got no idea what the hell angels think of that. But Bobby asked me not to elope, so I'm just letting you know I'm not shutting you out. Not that I could shut you out, Samantha, you stickin' your nose in my business every day. I am _not_ you guys' frikkin' soap opera telanovela."

"My 'stories' _have_ been in a drought lately. Ever since Rodrigo's suicidio, all they do is sit around and cry." Bobby's words are a complete deadpan as he stares out the windshield, and Dean has never been so happy to see his Baby as he is when they pull into the parking lot. He spills out of the truck the moment Sam steps out of his way, like it's a prison break and they might reconsider letting him out of interrogation. When the three of them reach his shared room with Castiel, Dean glances back at Sam and Bobby and uncharacteristically stops to knock, calling that he's coming in with Bobby and Sam.

Castiel looks better than he did earlier, having showered and shaved, but he still looks like he's lost weight recently; weight he didn't need to lose, and he obviously hasn't slept. He's sitting at the table with the Gideon Bible at his elbow, his journal open before him and a pen in his hand, so Bobby figures he took the challenge to fix that book's bad translations as well. It's a distraction, the journal, and perhaps someday a useful one. When Dean crosses the room and catches him in a one-armed hug, giving him a chaste kiss in front of his family as if he's the only sane damned person in the room, Castiel almost glows.

That is new for them. Open affection in front of the others was new since Christmas, since Dean sat with his arm around Cas's shoulder through an entire movie, but kissing him . . .

Dean rubs the back of his neck, catching himself, and glares at Bobby and Sam exchanging significant looks.

"Que precioso, Deano."

Castiel's eyes narrow and his head cants to the side slightly. "I don't understand. Even in Spanish you wouldn't add an 'o' to his. . ."

"Bobby's fucking with me, Cas."

"Oh." Castiel glares at Bobby, then, warningly, until Dean squeezes his shoulder lightly and drops down into the chair beside him, immediately stealing Castiel's full attention just with his presence.

"We've got some things we need your expertise on." If they're going to do this, they're going to do it _right._ Dean spent years taking for granted that Cas had all the answers for him and _demanded_ them, and he's going to be trying to make up for taking the angel for granted right up until he was broken on their behalf for a long while, even if Castiel doesn't see it that way. 

The eyes that stare back at him as he relays their information, with assistance from Sam and Bobby, are intelligent and ancient, and Dean's sense of foreboding increases as _his_ Cas becomes more and more Castiel, the angel of the lord, the shift in his posture and his mannerisms are subtle, but the effect is dramatic. Dean can see the tick in Castiel's tense jaw, the way his shoulders square, his back straightening in the chair, and he's silent for a long moment after Dean finishes.

"I should have seen it." If he hadn't been drowning in side-effects and withdrawal, he would have. "It's in the name. In all of the names of things, here. He has never been subtle, 'Saint George.'" Dean arches an eyebrow at him, prepared for another 'in the good old days' story that never quite sounds like how they'd gotten it down in the Bible and probably was funnier in Enochian. Castiel's accounting of saints and prophets sheds a whole new light on Biblical times, but how the hell was a saint going around naming shit in America? Cas sees the confusion in his eyes, and shakes his head slightly. "Saint George is just another representation of my eldest brother. Of _Michael_ , Dean."

"A rock plucked from earth to block the mouth of a tomb. A battle hot enough to melt the ground where they stood. A cage formed beneath the heart of a desert. Signs of demonic activity here are extremely bad news. _This_ is the place Michael trapped the other Grigori. Where he buried Lucifer's lieutenants in the earth."


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

_As a young boy chasing dragons with your wooden sword so mighty_  
_You're St. George or you're David and you always killed the beast_  
_Times change very quickly, and you had to grow up early_  
_A house in smoking ruins and the bodies at your feet_  
_You die as you lived in a flash of the blade, in a corner forgotten by no one_  
_You lived for the touch for the feel of the steel, one man, and his honor_

"The Flash of the Blade" by Iron Maiden

* * *

 

In an area where most of the natural beauty is awe inspiring, the Mountain Meadows Massacre Site is plain and unremarkable. The battlefield monument is an ugly pile of rocks, a flag and one of those National Historic Site signs engraved with the dry facts and bare of details. Nevertheless, the group of them gathers around it, eyes roaming the landscape as if fascinated by this tribute to a buried, unexplained and shameful piece of history.

"This place is unclean." Castiel's head feels as though it is splitting with pain, and his voice is deep and graveled with it: he squints through the sunglasses he's donned to help dim the stabbing of the sun's glare, although the day is overcast. "I can still taste sulfur from the demonic possession 150 years ago. But I don't sense any recent activity here."

"So, that's good, right?" Dean asks, as he hunches into his leather jacket, hands burrowed into the pockets; for a change, he's envying Sam's knit cap. Sammy's ears are probably warm under it. "No recent activity here means we can get out of this place, right? It's giving me the creeps."

It's a throwaway line, but something about it catches Sam's attention and he casts a measuring look at his brother. Dean's been getting "feelings" about things a lot lately. Sam isn't sure Dean or Cas have noticed it, with everything else going on, but he figures it's been too often and too accurate to really be _coincidence_ any more. Castiel standing around playing Heaven's bloodhound is one thing: he's still not entirely _human_. Dean, who's entire life has been a horror show, getting a case of the heebie-jeebies from something like this too . . . he files that information away as something to think about and maybe to talk to Bobby about later. He isn't even sure what he'd say to Dean that wouldn't get him laughed at for his suspicions.

They'd decided that the massacre site and battlefield were worth looking into because of the proximity to the St. George, and drove up together, but now the three younger men are huddled into their coats with their backs to the wind watching Bobby have an obviously upsetting conversation with someone on his cell phone. Bobby stomps back and forth and gestures, though he walked far enough away that they catch only an occasional loud word. Not enough to piece together a conversation.

"Well that does it," Bobby growls, snapping his flip phone shut and throwing it and himself into the passenger side of the Impala. "Boys, you gotta take me back, I need to head out of town pronto. Got a problem."

While Sam maneuvers the Impala back toward the hotel, Bobby fills them in. "The found a couple bodies in Salt Lake. Hunters, look like they were tortured and dumped in a warehouse. Some of the hunters in the area, they're meeting tonight. I gotta haul ass if I'm gonna make it, figure out what's going on and fill 'em in on the demonic crap in St. George."

"Want us to go with you?" Sam asks, and maybe the fact that his brother and the angel are visible in the rearview, again, Castiel's shoulder pressed to Dean's even with a foot of seat on either side of them, prompts the next part. "Or even just me. Dean and Cas can go check Zion National Park without me."

Bobby sighs like a punctured tire, his expression worried and almost pained. "Need you three to lay low – get outta that hotel, go out into the park some back way so you don't get seen on the entrance cameras and camp there. Figure out if we're about to have another apocalypse or something on our hands with this angel-cage. As long as you boys have your sleeping bags and personal crap, I probably got whatever else you'll need in the truck. Go to ground and stay there for a few days, a week maybe."

"What's up, Bobby?" Dean asks voice deep with concern.

Bobby turns in his seat, with a contemplative look at Dean, still obviously more focused on how they need to conceal themselves than actually listening to the question. "We oughta to trade vehicles too. I'll take the Impala – don't worry, Idjit, I'll take care of her."

"I care hell of a lot more about the possibility that you'll have a hit out on you from driving her, Bobby. You're talking like someone's got a hard-on for us. Love that car, but I can rebuild _her_ if I gotta." Dean's wearing his heart on his sleeve again, but damnit, Bobby means too much to him to let him risk getting hurt because of them. "Don't have any spare parts for grumpy old hunters lying around."

"I can look out for myself, boy. I'm old, not incompetent." The concern is mutually shared, and while Bobby doesn't try to hide it from the boys, they've always had interesting ways of showing affection. Raising his phone up, he tries to convey the importance of them actually _listening_ to his advice for once. "That phone call from my friend. . . seems like someone's got it into their heads that it's you boys who killed those hunters."

 

 

* * *

 

There's a small peninsula of Zion National Park that lies northwest of most of the 150,000 acres. That Kolob Canyon entryway abuts Interstate 15 north of Purgatory Flats, but it's miles of tough mountainous terrain and trails rated difficult to get from that point back to the curiously titled Angel's Landing, then to the massive monolith of The Great White Throne that Castiel believes is corking the cage. The guys don't plan to check in and will have to avoid park rangers and other hikers, but winter is the park's least popular season.

"This is gonna suck, Dean" Sam is wearing layers, his sleeping bag and one third of the food and necessary items in a backpack. He's stowed all their electronics in the truck – including their cell phones after Sam carefully turned off GPS tracking: there's no _chance_ of getting reception in the park, so they're just as well without.

"What, Sammy? You'd prefer we were glamping? Suck it up." Dean grins at his brother, dismissing his own foreboding in favor of mocking his brother's, a Winchester-classic in motivational speaking methods, as he tucks a few stray waves of unruly black hair under Castiel's newly acquired Military Surplus store knit cap.

Sam _really_ wants to give his brother shit about perpetually dressing the angel, but it's better than the alternative, and he can tell Cas isn't in the mood for humor right now.

Handing Sam and Cas both maps of the major trails and geographic features of the park, Dean takes point. Sam will be rearguard, keeping the less experienced hiker, Cas, in the middle. Dean is already worrying that as a novice to human living, never mind hiking in rough terrain or camping, that the fallen angel is going to have a tough time. He's secreted pain killers into his pocket just in case, and in the meantime sarcastically reads out names from the trail map as a running distraction for them both: Burnt Mountain, Lava Point, Tabernacle Dome, Cathedral Mountain, Temples of Sinawava, The Narrows, The Court of the Patriarchs, The Watchmen.

"I'm not volunteering to go to the Altar of Sacrifice." Dean smirks, but turning back he can finally see Castiel isn't really listening. Dean decides he hates the sunglasses: he can barely tell if Cas is even paying attention, or what he's thinking, or if he's in pain, because so much of the fallen angel's expression is in his eyes.

The plan is to avoid trails for the first stage of their journey, and make sure they get far enough away from any park service to remain undetected, without wandering off one of the red cliffs or finding themselves back-tracking out of a box canyon. They also want to do it with a minimum amount of rock climbing. They have to move fast to make any distance before they'll have to stop to set up camp in the half hour between dusk and full dark. "At least all we have to worry about is the terrain and weather," Dean says. "It'll be nice not to have to deal with …" He trails off, leaving the rest of what he was going to say unspoken.

"With monsters?" Cas asks, face turned toward him and expressionless beneath the sunglasses: he's not obtuse, however inexperienced they think he is. He has noticed Dean avoiding the word around him lately. He's trying  _not_  to be irritable, though, and he pushes past the touchy subject as best he's able, smoothing over the potential conversational pitfall before it can register for Dean. "What about predatory animals?"

That one Dean can't let pass, he turns and leers at Cas, clicking his tongue and winking suggestively. "I'm right here."

Sam laughs, and Castiel ducks his head with a quiet huff of amusement, and Dean takes comfort in still being able to get something out of them with ridiculousness. "Seriously though," Dean picks back up. "Saw reports that mountain lions have been spotted in this area of the park, so we gotta be smart setting up camp. They'll mostly leave a group of people alone, though, and it's not the season to have to worry about any kind of bear or snake. It'll be fine. Maybe fun even. We just need to be careful – any of us getting injured would be a bitch to deal with. And Sam, it'll be good for you to be unplugged for a few days."

Sam hrmphs at his brother, keeping his eye on the terrain under his feet. "I just don't like the idea of being out of touch with Bobby right now, with Hunters putting their sights on us. It's not the first time they've gotten up at arms about us, but we've never dragged Bobby into it like this before." And there's Sam, able to kill a good mood at a hundred paces. The three men keep moving, all wrapped in their own thoughts and hurrying more than keeping a leisurely pace, setting into the hike.

As dusk falls, they stop to set up camp. As a first-timer, Cas knows he needs to learn fast or risk being coddled by Dean. The Winchesters learned how to rough-it from their Marine father (no one is actually ever a former Marine). Though both admit they'd rather have a motel room, when given the choice, they both know their roles. Dean clears a spot downwind from the tent site and about 12 feet away. He digs a pit in the rocky earth with an entrenching tool, but only about a foot deep: even out in the middle of nowhere, he still finds himself on ditch duty. At least he isn't digging down for a corpse this time. Stripping off his jacket temporarily to cool down, Dean feels eyes on his back and pauses, turning to shoot a look over his shoulder at Castiel, offering him a slow smirk.

Yeah. He _knows_  he looks good.

"Stop objectifying me, you perv. Go make yourself useful and get some rocks to circle the fire pit." The tasks continue for the former angel, gathering tinder and kindling and dry wood to fuel the fire Dean's starting, and Castiel drifts back to him each time, clearly spent from the hike but following orders calmly, eventually hunkering down to feed the fire as Dean helps Sam set up the tent.

Bobby's half-dome four-man backpacker's tent is easy to set up, but as the guys move their packs inside and roll out sleeping bags they notice they've got a little problem – Sam's too frikkin' tall. The only way he can lie flat is if his sleeping bag, an extra-long, lies diagonally across the tent. Sam grins at Dean, amused entirely at his brother's expense and completely unapologetic about the inconvenience. "Well, I guess I don't have to worry about you two getting up to anything, 'cause this puts me in the middle."

Dean rumbles something that sounds remarkably like he called his brother a cock-block.

Sam's still chuckling when they rejoin Cas at the fire, starting to build a lean-to frame with the fuel wood. Dean digs out three military MRE, and announces they're all having chicken with noodles, then settles shoulder to shoulder with Cas to teach him how to heat the entrée with the flameless heater. This meal is Dean's favorite pack because it includes a package of peanut M&M's for dessert. Cas hands Dean his bag too after listlessly eating his soup, and surprises them both by asking if they mind him turning in early.

The angel is clearly exhausted, that overshadowing all other symptoms: maybe wearing himself out was just what he needed to get past the shakes and the insomnia. He trudges himself to the tent moments later, zipping himself away, and Dean frowns at the tent for a moment before shaking off his thoughts, but he's not the only one with something on his mind.

Sam fixes two cups of the hot chocolate drink that comes in the meal packet, and the brothers sip while staring into the fire. After Sam's third long sigh, Dean finally gives in. "Spit it out Sam, I'm not the great Kreskin. I can't read your mind."

It's too on the nose for Sam to give up the opportunity to ask, an acerbic note creeping into his words. "You sure, Dean? You're awfully intuitive lately. You felt something off with Rivera in San Antonio, with Bernadette in Albuquerque, and now the massacre site gives you the creeps. Since when are you so in touch with your feelings?"

Dean glances at his brother – a brief searching look as he tries to read his face, and he shakes his head slightly. "So what, you think I'm turning psychic, Sammy? Is that what you're asking?" Dean looks away and slurps from his still too hot drink; he wishes he could Irish it up to get through whatever Sam's digging at, but he's been off booze in solidarity with Cas trying to get off pills. There are times when the best way to drag an answer out of Dean is not to pry, but to wait him out. Sam lets his silence speak for him, makes his brother process the idea as Sam burrows deeper into his coat for warmth. He knows he's won when Dean sighs.

"Since my _latest_ resurrection. . ." Dean's sarcasm is so sharp it cuts ". . .I dunno. Maybe I have been different. I don't know what it is Sam. I don't _feel_ like I'm not human, you know? But look how many times recently we've both been told we're like. . . human _plus._ " Putting his cup down, Dean scratches calloused fingers through the stubble on his jaw. He's still not making eye contact with his brother – he doesn't want to see himself as a freak in his brother's eyes. How often had Dean called Sam on his powers, when they started showing up?

"You think this is about Storm Lake?" It's Sam's turn to look away, now, into the fire. Storm Lake was as much on _his_ head as Castiel's.

"Maybe. . . I dunno, Sam. Maybe Cas has glued me back together using angel mojo one time too many. And maybe trusting my gut more often, or . . . " _getting in touch with my feelings". .  ."_ Sam can't help his amusement at the tone of disdain Dean uses for the term ". . . _isn't_ such a bad thing. I feel like maybe I've just grown up enough to find some happiness where I can, and this, with Cas. . . I can _have_ this and it doesn't put him in any more danger than he ever is, not like with Lisa and Ben. He's pretty much in harm's way whether I'm putting him there or not."

Castiel is on his way to being a decent enough hunter, by now, but . . . civilian life isn't an option for him, either. You can't just settle down and open a B&B or something when you put yourself on Hell's Most Wanted list and pissed off Heaven. There is nowhere in the world that Castiel can hide and pretend to be normal, without his past hunting him, even if he'd wanted to. "Whatever the hell is going on. . . I know that I don't feel whole anymore without him there." Dean rubs his hand against the back of his neck, hunching in on himself further, sure sign of a reluctant confession. ". . . and not to creep you out bro, but not just near, touching." Dean clears his throat embarrassed, looks up at Sam under long lashes. "How do you always get us into these girly conversations, Sam? Can't we talk about guns or monsters?"

Sam looks at his brother, sadly. "Far as the other hunters are concerned, Dean. . . I think when we talk about _us_ , we _are_ talking about the monsters. Used to be the only thing strange about us was how far we were willing to go for each other." Sam sighs again, and shrugs. He knew what they were like when the chips were down, or when he had demon blood, or when Dean died, or during the dark year of the Mystery Spot. Or when he held the Grace of God in his hands and threw it at a half-mad mass murdering fallen angel, accepting a killing field if it got him his brother back. "Look at us now, harboring a fallen angel and chasing after hell. Even for hunters, we're not exactly normal, Dean."

Dean grunts, acknowledging that, and stares into the flames a moment or two longer before pushing himself to his feet, the conversation over. Together, the somber brothers smother the fire and crawl into their sleeping bags.

 

 

* * *

 

Sam wakes up just as the first light touches the sky because - even though it's only 20 degrees out - he's too warm. It doesn't take him long to figure out why. Dean and Cas have both turned toward him in their sleep, effectively pinning him with his arms inside his sleeping bag between them, the peanut butter in their sandwich. He nudges the sleeping-bag bundled mass that is Dean with his shoulder, only to have his big brother mumble and try to tug him closer, an arm across his chest. Cas has managed to move his floppy hair against Sam's chin and is snoring softly, his hand splayed across Dean's forearm. Sam sighs in resignation and falls back asleep, more content with the warmth and having his whole family close than he'd like to admit.

Next time he wakes up it's to his brother's cheerful "Rise and Shine!"

Cas and Dean both have their stuff stored; Cas grousing a little bit about the lack of proper wash room facilities—but it's normal pre-coffee Castiel bitchiness, and still better than "Here's Johnny!" psycho-crazy withdrawal Cas. Sam can almost empathize with him when Dean hands Sam a power bar and a hot tin of instant coffee with instant creamer and sugar, stuff that would be considered undrinkable – if there was anything else to drink. "C'mon, Buttercup, get your oversized self out of the tent so I can get it stored. Wakey, wakey."

Within fifteen minutes they are hiking again with no trace of them left behind. 

 

* * *

 

Castiel is falling into the rhythm of the hike; they are moving to cover distance without endangering themselves as they head further south east toward the point known as Angel's Landing, and Castiel is studiously watching for signs of dizziness, shortness of breath, or any other symptoms of high-altitude problems from himself and his Winchesters, as his guide indicated he should. The hike, the fresh air, and being out of confinement are helping: at times he's having to put his complete concentration into the rigorous trek as the trail cuts into solid rock along a sandstone rib. In those times he can't let himself linger in terror that his involvement with Bobby and the Winchesters is going to get them killed, or mentally drift into the battlefield of his brothers and sisters, or how long it's been since he's taken his pills.

Psychological addiction, physical addiction. . . he hates that he's let himself become so _weak_. So human.

No. Humanity is flawed, but still something he can only to aspire to. Castiel watches humanity, sees it shining from the Winchesters, but every step he takes on this mountain path is a step closer to what he truly _is_ : the exact same type of abomination whose cage they are currently seeking. These Grigori fell from Heaven, as he did, and brought pain, fear, and death to mankind and angels. They were angels who were sent to Earth as watchers who corrupted their human charges.

Without the drugs to dull the edges of the horrors, Castiel can replay in his mind's eye every atrocity _he_ committed with Heaven's power as well.

("Whoa, steady there, Cas. Where's your head at?" Dean smiles at him, concern in his green eyes and a hand on his elbow, and Castiel nods slightly without answering, keeping a hand on the rocks before him and resuming the trek, determined not to cause more worry in a man who already carries too many burdens.)

This is where Michael forced Lucifer's two lieutenants out of the heavens to lock them into the depths of the earth. Lucifer was locked in a cage in hell – where he now shares the cell with Michael; Azazel and almost 200 others were thrown into hell, but Asmodeus and Ba'el were entombed in the Earth herself to keep Lucifer from having the whole of his army. Always the tactician, Michael had separated Lucifer's most loyal from their captain, and sealed them away with rock and Grace and the unified power of Heaven for in earth time, more than one million years. The fallen are together but alone. Awake and aware, but Castiel has no way of knowing whether they are sane any longer – or if they were even sane when the great battle took place.

Castiel wonders if he will be able to hear them. If they can tell he is coming or, since he mutilated himself and ripped out most of his Grace to be with Dean on earth, if they won't be able to tell he was ever an angel at all.


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

_  
Somebody's shouting up at a mountain, only my own words return_

_Nobody's up there, it's a deception_

_When will I ever learn?_

_I'm alone here, with emptiness eagles and snow_

_Unfriendliness chilling my body_

_And whispering pictures of home_

\- "Pictures of Home" by Deep Purple

* * *

 

Rigorous, brutal, beautiful, treacherous. All those terms applied as the guys pushed themselves across the red-sandstone cliffs and canyons of Zion National Park. It's a military march, not a recreational hike, all of the sights of the park examined with the critical eye of paranoia, looking for the threat around the next bend. The rocks jut from the earth, sweeping jagged cliffsides, the rockfaces showing signs of erosion, of wear, and each layer revealing millions of years of history cut into the earth like the rings of an oak tree. Skyscrapers could easily be swallowed in the depths of the deepest canyons, as if the earth is attempting to remind these broken creatures crawling along her skin of their own insignificance.

They reach the base of Angel's Landing with about an hour of daylight remaining, having skipped trails whenever possible and with only one shouting match between the two navigators. Dean wished he'd had popcorn to go with that one. Who knew his brother and his angel would both be Alpha male about who could read a topographical map better? _Pretty entertaining_ , Dean muses what else could do that trick, _Ikea furniture directions? Recipes?_ The sight of his angel and his brother almost nose-to-nose trying to out command each other really was too entertaining to have let slip by forever with no one as witness except himself. _Note to self: Buy small digital video camera_. The entire exchange was particularly entertaining as Sam attempted to loom, and Castiel still managed to look down at a man half a foot taller than him.

Three minutes into the terse exchange, Dean had taken the map, oriented himself, and used game trails left by mule deer to end the argument.

With Dean in front maintaining the pace on the rugged terrain, it becomes more and more difficult for the eldest Winchester to hide his limp by the time they reach the famous landmark of Zion.

"Where's your leg brace?" Sam eventually grounds out accusingly as he uses the unholy advantage of freakishly long legs to shorten the distance between them, slapping a hand onto his brother's shoulder to stop him.

"Leg brace?" Dean is attempting to convey both innocence and confusion, and failing at both. "That was a long time ago, Sammy."

Castiel has managed to wedge himself against Dean's side, and as he unzips and digs through the bag on Dean's back without a by-your-leave he jostles the hunter, who grimaces and glares over his shoulder at the angel (who seems neither intimidated by the look, nor ashamed of his actions).

"I _packed_ your leg brace, Dean." His angel can really be a prissy little pain in the ass, sometimes.

"And I _unpacked_ it into the truck, Cas." Dean responds in a slow, condescending tone, before picking back up defensively. "I'm not carrying extra shit on a hike, you're supposed to go light."

"And if I end up having to _carry_ your ass out of this canyon. . ." Sam begins, only to have Dean roll his eyes at him.

"Don't be so damned dramatic. We'll set up camp down here for the night, I'll be fine. You girls do the tourist thing and stop _nagging_ me, I'm _fine_."

The 'tourist thing' in this case being the nearly three mile, treacherous hike up to Angel's Landing, one of the most popular and dangerous sites for thrill-seekers in the state, and unfortunately one of the intended stops on the way. Dean recognizes that he has _some_ limits: and that 1,500 foot rock is pretty frikkin' intimidating, a trail so steep the National Park Service has added chains for hikers to cling to when they climb, and a height dangerous enough that their map warns about the very real threat of drunken hiker idiots falling to their deaths from it.

No frikkin' thanks, Dean thinks. He'll set up camp.

 

 

* * *

 

Castiel's muscles ache, a persistent burn that by the time they crest the top has him nearly trembling. . . or perhaps it's the location itself. Still winded, Castiel's boots crunch on the thin layer of ice and snow that barely dusts the very tops of these mountainous outcroppings, and the sharp December wind and the sweeping view steal the breath of both men for a moment.

Stooping low after a long minute, hiking boots sure on the rock, Castiel presses a hand to the red sandstone and smiles quietly to himself, eyes closed behind his sunglasses and head bowed. Sam watches Cas trail his fingers over the rough surface, raking through the powdered-sugar snow and to the earth beneath, and for once on this trip as he's lost in his thoughts he seems to revel in them. The curiosity gets the better of Sam, and turning away from the view he watches the fallen angel closely.

"What do you feel?" It's obvious this detour is about more than sweeping vistas and fresh air.

"Michael." Castiel says, and the small smile slips after a moment as Cas opens his eyes again, as if realizing the name doesn't particularly have positive connotations for the man in front of him. There's a quiet edge to his voice, as he deliberately redefines the term. " _My_ older brother."

"The guy who tried to take Dean's body on a joyride to the end of the world." Castiel looks up at the warning note in Sam's voice, rising to his feet again and tucking his hands into the pockets of his jacket to warm them.

"The archangel who cast Lucifer and all of his agents out of Heaven." Facing the younger Winchester, Castiel cants his head to the side slightly. "You, your brother, you have both done things that you cannot condone of each other . . . but you are still brothers. The bond you two share, it's remarkable: even amongst my closest family, I have never experienced anything like it. But Michael was our leader, our general, and my brother. We all looked up to him, as you look up to Dean, and to call him a legend. . ." Castiel shrugs slightly, and Sam can't remember if that was a gesture the angel had demonstrated before he fell, or if Cas had deliberately patterned himself so closely on the human traits of the Winchester brothers that sometimes it's like watching a distorted mirror. "To call him a legend is redundant. He is traced through all of human lore, a repeated image of heroism and Divine might. I can _feel_ him, here, a spark of the Divine, even hundreds of thousands of years after this battle ended. And it feels like. . ."

There aren't words.

Castiel trails off again, looking away at the field of one of his brother's most infamous battles, and Sam watches him with a frown. Castiel had chosen: standing in a boneyard in Kansas he'd flambéed Michael at the expense of his own life, to buy Dean a few precious minutes. He had broken Dean out of the greenroom when he should have handed him over to be the Michaelsword, and died for them again in defiance of Michael. Again and again in the days leading up to the Apocalypse, he'd stood against Michael and Heaven and thrown himself in with the Winchesters. And now, he is an open wound—to the point where even Sam, who has never gotten as good at reading him as Dean seemed to be, can spot it clearly.

"You miss it."

Ducking his head, Castiel huffs quietly in bitter amusement, and draws his sunglasses back off, looking at Sam with bloodshot blue eyes, an errant sweep of dark hair low on his forehead beneath his cap. "Sam. If you lost your legs, wouldn't you ' _miss them_ '?" It's as if the cliffside, the solitude, Castiel's piercing stare, are filtering images into Sam's mind, dredging up how broken, how nearly suicidal Bobby was after being confined to a wheelchair. "If you lost your eyes, wouldn't you ' _miss them_ '?" Pamela, so ready to stick it to the angels however she could, after Castiel inadvertently burned away her sight. "I tore out my own Grace, ripped apart my 'soul,' to be here. . . kept only the barest fraction of what I was. Just enough to animate this form, function as a human and I gave up. . . _everything_ else."

"Why?" It slips out inadvertently, with thoughts of destroyed souls and maimed broken individuals.

"You know why, Sam." And there it is, the quiet sense of humanity that Castiel had been lacking, that Sam hadn't realized he was looking for until he sees it again. Castiel has been acting like an _angel_ , like a dick with wings, since they started this trek. He'd reverted back to fleeting expressions and long silences and terse declarations on Heaven and Hell, and now apparently latent hero-worship of a prick who'd tried to _end the world_.

"Dean." Sam interjects the reason into Castiel's silence, the basis for all of his choices, and Castiel doesn't argue. For a moment, Sam figures the conversation is over as Castiel looks out over the cliffs to the deep valley below, watching light slowly retreat along the ground.

"When I fell, it wasn't out of expectation of being with Dean, or even hope that what I felt could be acted on. I'd ruined. . . _everything_. I fell because I _deserved_ to fall. I knew there would be pain, I knew it would stay with me, but it was the only way. . . the only chance I had of redeeming myself to both of you and explaining, apologizing, trying to fix some small part of what I'd done. It was the only thing keeping me. I think otherwise I would have 'fallen on my sword.'"

"You're talking about _suicide_ , Cas." Sam feels the sharp twinge of concern, of panic, looking at this creature who his brother has tied up so much of his happiness into that he's thinking about _marrying_ him like it's a real option, like it's something he can have. It's selfish and selfless and he knows it, but the idea that Castiel succeeding in the subconscious death wish he's been chasing since Storm Lake, since trying to take off on his own in San Antonio, drugging himself as if he's trying to get closer to the unfeeling nature he'd had before. . . his concern isn't for Castiel. His only thought is that it would _break_ Dean.

"I'm talking about correcting a mistake." And it's such a cold, indifferent way for Cas to view himself, as a 'mistake,' that Sam bunches his fists, bracing himself as if for a physical fight, one hand knotting into the shoulder of Castiel's jacket and wrenching him around to look at Sam. It's only the fact that they're suspended over a thousand feet in the air on a slippery ice-covered rock that keeps him from punching the angel.

"If you try any of that bullshit... "

"I won't." Castiel intones solemnly, interrupting him, face unreadable. "I didn't expect Dean to forgive me. And I didn't expect he would ever act on our feelings after what I did. I didn't expect after everything I'd done that you could forgive me, either. But you both did, and I have a purpose again. I'm _here_. For better or for worse. I've made my choices, as I made all the ones that led me here, and I can't leave him. I won't give that up." The quiet half a smile is back. "Dean has decided I 'deserve to be saved.' I won't fail that again."

 

 

* * *

 

Dean rests after moving back a ways from the trail up to Angel's Landing to set up camp. His frikkin' knee is frikkin' killing him, and now that Cas and Sam aren't around to see Dean takes two of the painkillers in the stash he keeps for his angel. This getting old shit sucks, or there's a tiny possibility that they're right and this isn't what the doctors in San Antonio meant when they told him to take it easy for six weeks and then do physical therapy. It's been six weeks. Might should have started slower than a 30-something mile hike through the backcountry for physical therapy, but he's never going to admit that in front of the others. Allowing the narcotics to sooth the pain, Dean strips down to boxers and T-shirt and climbs in to his sleeping bag in the tent, rolls onto his stomach, cushions his head in his arms and drifts off to sleep.

He wakes slowly, hours later, feeling hands running down the corded muscles of his back, smoothing, circling, and kneading. Castiel nuzzles his neck lightly, following the curve of his jaw with wind-chapped lips and warm breath and nibbling softly on the edges of his ear. He fits his hand over the mark he left on Dean when he pulled him from Hell, and perhaps it was a bit selfish, a bit possessive, that surge of warmth he felt every time he saw it, every chance he had now to see how these fingers perfectly fit along the marks like an artist's signature. The mark he was not supposed to leave, the one that claimed Dean when he had been destined to be Michael's vessel.

Dean rolls on his side, deftly dropping the angel on his back into his arms in the confines of the sleeping bag and muttering softly. "Where's Sam?"

"Your brother is writing notes in his journal by the fire. I told him I was going to turn in," Cas whispers, trying to keep this stolen moment together their secret. The fallen angel wriggles slightly, moving smoothly and with familiarity against the hunter, trying to drive thoughts of sleep from him, but hesitates when he draws a pained response from Dean. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. Nothing, just sleepy, Cas." But the angel's blue eyes glare with a stern expression that says he isn't buying the lie. Dean huffs. "Just the knee, Cas. 'msleepy," he slurs, and Castiel's sharp blue gaze doesn't miss the changes. Dean may be able to outdrink Castiel, but he's never shown much tolerance for pain medication. Cas can practically taste the drugs in Dean's kiss as he dips in lightly to seal their lips together, and the old instincts and new cravings war with each other for a moment. It's a tense moment for him, but then he shifts as carefully as their close quarters will permit and Dean allows the angel to draw his head gently onto his chest. "Shhh, then."

Castiel needs _this_ more, physical intimacy is the headier drug, his first human addiction if he's honest with himself. Ghosting a kiss against Dean's temples, the top of his forehead, he settles his arms around Dean and relaxes into his position as the protector this night. He will be the guardian he was meant to be, and he is thankful for that. "Then sleep."

When Sam climbs into his sleeping bag later that night, he looks at Dean sleeping peacefully clasped on Castiel's chest, the two slender men sharing the one bag. He snorts and surprises himself with his next venomous thought. _I'll kill him if he hurts Dean again_.

 

 

* * *

 

The sun rises on the final day of the year, and it's a distant hidden thing from their shadowed shelter at the base of the cliffs. Dean feels Castiel's eyes on him as he uses an ace bandage on his knee to brace it for the trek across the river to the Great White Throne, but the angel is either satisfied with the solution or willing to let him have his friggin' dignity and pride for once, because he doesn't mention it.

They're leaving high desert, but within the valley it is an oasis: even in in the depths of winter there are hanging gardens and weeping rocks, and the chill breeze travelling through the valley and the mingling voices of the cascading waterfalls remind Castiel of wind chimes. Their goal, the Great White Throne, will be in sight the entire time: it stands above the rest of the park, a solid block of stone that seems to gather the glow of the unseen rising sun, sparkling white against the burnt reds of the rest of the park. It's easy to imagine it being touched by Divine hands, placed there like a glistening, multifaceted diamond, its crystalline fluted edges rising 2,300 feet from the land around it. Now, with their goal in sight, all they have to do is get there while avoiding tourists and park employees - inevitably, the cage for dangerous unholy badasses was topped by the biggest natural attraction in a popular park.

Dean scowls at it for a moment, arms crossed as he allows them a brief respite from his drill sergeant encouragement on their march, and considers the prick that had apparently dropped it there. "Frikkin' show-off."

"Michael always did enjoy driving his point home with impressive visual reminders." Castiel agrees lowly, hands braced on his thighs, hunched over and drawing air into his burning lungs. Dean's expression shifts as he turns to consider his best friend, smirking cockily.

"Is that some kind of angelic pick-up line, Cas? Calling me an impressive visual reminder of what a badass looks like?"

Sam cuffs his brother upside the head as he passes them, rolling his eyes. "Shoulda picked me, then, short stuff."

"I said badass, not overgrown man-boy, ya frikkin' yeti. Besides, it ain't just the height, it's the packaging." Dean waggles his eyebrows at Castiel, who looks up at him with a furrowed brow and pain-glazed distant eyes, before fixing on Dean's words again. His half a smile seems faintly strained.

"You are impressively packaged." Cas agrees about Dean's appearance, and ahead Sam calls out hastily, before his brother's blossoming leer can become words - " _Shelf_ that comment, Dean, I do _not_ want that visual imagery."

"Spoilsport. Straight line comes along like that, it's a crime not to go for it." Cas seems lost about their interaction, but hell. That was half the fun. Still chuckling at his own jokes, spoken and suppressed, Dean draws Castiel back to standing upright, before pausing. The smile dies on his lips slowly as he searches Castiel's face.

"Cas, what's. . .?"

Shaking his head tersely, dismissing the question before Dean can voice it, Castiel pushes on again and Dean falls in behind them, slowing with his knee and to keep a concerned eye on the angel before him. If Dean was hurting, he figured the others had to be too, and there was more going on than he understood.

"One step at a time." he offers up, because whether it was the trek or the addictions or something else, it was decent encouragement for all of them.

Their attempts to stay under the radar will mean that crossing the bridge over the Virgin River is out because the lodge and park police are there. Instead, they are going cross country, across the river, the shortest but most difficult route. Something is wrong, and it's growing more apparent as the sun climbs higher overhead and they move closer to their destination.

Sam notices that something is wrong with Castiel, too, but he's more concerned about his brother. Crossing cold fast-moving water makes for rough traveling, never mind doing so when your knee is obviously being pushed past your current physical limits. _Only an idiot would have put himself in this situation_ , Sam gives a head shake, _and only the idiot's brother would be right there with him._

"Dean. Sam. Stop."

They're among the calm green pools of water settled deep into crevices and dips of sandstone, and Castiel has cracked, long fingers cradling his head, eyes slitted against the sunlight, breath coming in short pants as he doubles over. He hears his name and it anchors him. . . the familiar name Dean had given him when they were still practically strangers, and he responds to it better than the whispers of his given name echoing through his mind.

"I can _hear_ them." The hoarse whisper still sounds too harsh, too loud, it rumbles in his chest and rolls through his aching skull like the crash of thunder.

Dean's with him now, he would know the weight of that arm around him anywhere, lets himself trust it to support him even as he finds himself submerged in his own mind, pulled under by the siren's song of creatures older even than he, the seductive murmurs of beings who nearly _invented_ sin.

"Cas. . ." The pool of water at his feet is a vibrant wet green, like Dean Winchester's eyes on a clear morning, and his fingernails press bloody crescents into his palms as he tries to orient himself on those thoughts, divide himself from their welcomes and their soothing touch, letting him raise his gaze to fix on the real Dean. "Is it the angel radio, again. . .?"

"Yes. No. . . It's _them_."

Castiel can feel the Grigori-soured Grace pulsing through the earth around him, a dangerous beauty like his brother Lucifer exudes. Here on the edge of the park where the desert meets an area that looks like paradise, his brothers are entombed; and they can feel him coming. The pain isn't of their devising: their light touch shows him how broken he is, where his mutilated spark of Grace still bleeds, and he's fighting their promises of help, their comfort on an instinctual level.

Because the first thought of these forgotten brothers is surprise and pleasure that Castiel has brought these two particular men with him.

"They are awake in their cage. They think I am bringing you to them . . . as _vessels_." Sam hunches down next to them, as Dean draws Castiel down next to him, settling him onto a boulder to ensure he doesn't stumble, and the flick of blue eyes towards hazel is stubborn in their pain. Sam could think what he wanted about Castiel's fonder memories of Michael, but Castiel will _not_ sell the Winchesters to any of his brothers. Never again. "They believe I'm here to join them. Me coming here is a terrible mistake – they recognize me as one of _them_."

Dean has slipped his calloused hand beneath the hem of Castiel's jacket and shirts, and the contrast of cold air and Dean's warm palm against the small of his back lets him focus on blocking out their cloying words, the slide of skin on skin easing the emptiness and sense of loss by filling him with Dean's soothing presence, but the sharp headache is unabated.

"Guess we found out what we needed to know here," Dean's looking at the bright side, but worry has added a rough baritone edge to his voice. They aren't too far from the lodge. They can head up there and call Bobby. This is the main travel area of the park where Bobby can drive in and they can sit in the restaurant and have real food and real coffee while they wait for him.

And he can get Castiel the hell away from these monster-fallen-angel pricks, before things get worse.

 

 

* * *

 

Things, of course, get worse.

As Dean limps up the final incline onto the paved road to the bridge, he's already developing creative invectives that seem not nearly emphatic enough when he comes face to face with two park rangers that approached as soon as Sam's head popped into view, bracketing them on the even ground. Offering Castiel a hand up, he realizes it's a hell of a lot worse than just being fined for dodging the park fees when his angel's face blanks deliberately, eyes fixed on the visage of the rangers. Their _true_ visage.

Castiel's sudden, telling loose-limbed stance confirms Dean's sense of unease even before the angelic blade drops into his open palm, other hand freeing from Dean's.

 _Demons_.

Subtlety isn't exactly Castiel's style. The moment they know they've been made, the lead demon's eyes blink to pitch-black, a slow sneer spreading unnaturally along homey features, but there is an undertone to his words that Dean hears clearly.

He's always been a damned good poker player: he knows a tell, the edge of fear, when he hears it.

"Boss figured someone was poking around, but if it isn't both Winchesters and their pet featherduster. Guess this isn't such a waste of time after-all. King'd like a word with you three."

"Yeah, and I only have two for Crowley. 'Fuck off.'" Dean sneers at the demon, and as their attention fixates on the most irritating man in any given situation, as he plays to the cues he heard, Castiel recognizes the opportunity Dean is deliberately providing and _moves_. There's an economy of motion to Castiel's fighting style that is unique in their little trio: one moment he is still, loose and deceptively quiet, and the next he is lashing out with the blade that has been an extension of his will since the dawn of time. Skewering the demon with the triangular point, he drives it bodily to the pavement, clearing himself from the line of fire and from Dean's path.

There had been a time, not too many years back, when _one_ demon had been enough to give the Winchesters pause. Now the brothers act in tandem, without hesitation: now it is these lesser demons that run from _them_. As the second ranger spins in place, prepared to run or to smoke-out, he finds Sam Winchester leveling the Colt directly at his temple as Dean sidles up behind him, pressing the cold edge of Ruby's blade to his throat. Theirs is the more dangerous ploy, however it may seem. A surprise attack is one thing, questioning a demon without the safety net of a Devil's Trap or knowing its full capabilities is an entirely different one.

Dean growls in the Demon's ear. "You working for Crowley? What is your boss looking for here? What's the plan?" Before Dean can scare the answers out of the demon they have captured, they hear a familiar woman's voice behind them, faintly bored and sticky-sweet.

"Hello, boys. You can finish that one off it you want. They are working for Crowley. He's looking for Clarence, here, and I suggest the plan is we stop him."


	4. Chapter 4

 

  
_Azazel is beside you and he's playing the game_  
_Demons are inside you and they're making their play_  
_Watching and they're hiding as they wait for the time_  
_For a devil to get ready to take over your mind_  
_You and only God would know what could be done_  
_You and only God will know I am the only one_  
_You and only God would know what could be done_  
_You and only God will know I am the chosen one_

\- "Fallen Angel" by Iron Maiden

* * *

 

Dean hates flying. Airplanes are the worst, bar none, but the stomach-churning, back-wrenching sensation of being hurtled through the air unsupported because some telekinetic jackass comes in second, with 'I got tossed by some over-muscled badass' pulling in the bronze for 'shit Dean can really live without.'

Apart from the general nausea-inducing sense of being unsupported, which he figures he's getting to be a frikkin' champ at dealing with, there's the inevitable crash. And, considering they're between a slope full of rocks and a paved stone bridge, it's going to hurt. Dean's also becoming a connoisseur of how it feels to hit cars, walls, glass windows, furniture, and pretty much anything else in his general vicinity at any given time, because for some fucking reason, everyone thinks Dean makes a damned good stand-in for a crash test dummy.

(The sharp report of the Colt echoes through the valley below, likely carrying for miles, and compared to that the electric-sounding hiss of a destroyed demonic spirit it's deafening.)

All things considered, smashing into Castiel is probably the best of the available options, not that he'd really had much choice in the matter when the demon in his arms had taken advantage of Meg's little teleportation drop-in trick to flip the hell out and remind them why they really, really shouldn't go tussling with demons without Devil's traps in place. Cas, of course, goes down like a sack of frikkin' bony potatoes (Dean's analogies have always kind of sucked, even in his mental musings) underneath him, but it does keep Dean from taking a tumble down the cliff-like slope they'd just dragged their asses up in the first place.

Which is a win for the home team. Sort of. He's spared having to demonstrate his best Wile E. Coyote impersonation, at least.

"Son of a. . ."

"Ow." Castiel grunts lowly, pinned beneath the sprawled mess of Dean's body, and he's gentle in shoving Dean off of him, half-rolling to the side and for a panicked moment Dean thinks it might be from injury, until Cas snatches up Ruby's blade from the concrete and slides it along the pavement back to him, choosing to rearm Dean first before reclaiming his own angelic blade.

They're both rearmed by the time the demon's body slumps face-first to the street. Leaning casually against the stone walls of the bridge, Meg watches Dean reach down and haul Castiel back to his feet with entirely too much interest, a growing smirk painting her open, girlish features as she observes the fairly uneventful scene with apparent delight that infuses her saccharine voice.

"Golly gee, Castiel, such a touching display. You gonna throw yourself in front of cliffs for Sam, too, or is that one of the 'benefits' in this blossoming romance?"

Maybe Cas being where he'd been hadn't been such a happy coincidence after all. They'll argue about it later. For now, they have a demon in front of them who seems to not give a shit about the fact that she's their sole target, and that Sam has her in his sights.

"Oh, stop the posturing boys. We're on the same side right now, and you're running short on friends. Crowley's about to wipe out Heaven, and we just wouldn't want that, now would we?"

This is the woman responsible for the deaths of Pastor Jim, of dozens of the friends and family that they could have turned to over the years, picked off one by one for assisting John Winchester or the boys. She had murdered Ellen and Jo, had worked to start the apocalypse, and attempted to enlist their assistance with threats and blackmail, only acting as an ally when it suits her to. When it benefits her to have them at her back. There is no lost love between the creature they're met as Meg Masters, and these boys. . . but she _had_ been an ally last, and the hesitation is all she needs. Her grin widens, and she tucks her hands into her back pockets, hip-cocked poise and knowing grin.

"Tell us what you know." It's Castiel's voice, pain-rough and commanding, that eases the tension from the brothers. _They_  taught him to work with her, when it called for it, and she's dangled the bait enticingly directly at him. Crowley only has the advantage because of _him._ In this, the Winchester brothers let him make the call: in matters of Heaven, they're deferring to his choice on the matter. For now.

Each hip-swinging step brings her closer, and she wets her lips with her tongue, looking at an increasingly alarmed Castiel.

"Mmm, so commanding! I _like_. You make my meat-suit all weak in the knees when you . . ."

"Stow it, Meg." Dean grates out, angrily, and Castiel grimaces at the sound of it and the general discomfort of this entire situation, shooting a fleeting wide-eyed look at Sam, who holds his hands up at him, shaking his head.

"You're the one that stuck your tongue down her throat in front of us, man. I'm not in this."

He really wishes Sam hadn't reminded everyone of that fact. And that he'd just let the boys kill her. Dean's words only spur Meg on, proving she's bothering them, and Dean seems to realize his mistake or be waiting for Castiel to handle it. Adam's apple bobbing, posture fixed and muscles corded, Castiel fixes a flat, impassive stare on Meg as she twines an arm around his shoulder, her voice a sing-song taunt. "What's the matter, Castiel? You liked it last time, I could _feel_ it. What, now you can't get it up for. . ."

The angelic blade presses to Meg's sternum warningly, and Castiel slowly backs her off of him with the slow advance of the point, forcing her to arm's length before speaking. "You tasted like sulfur and used too much tongue."

Dean's satisfied snort of laughter, Castiel's words, they seem to confirm precisely what Meg was looking for. She lets herself be pushed back, flashing her Cheshire grin, a smile that promises wicked things and takes humor in all the wrong places. Eyes fixed on Castiel, her words are for the elder Winchester. "Congrats, Dean-o. I can _smell_ you all over him, now. Horizontal mambo with an angel? Even I haven't stooped that low. Should I guess at the pick-up line that took? 'Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?' or maybe . . . "

"Shut. Up." Castiel's clipped interruption, Dean's unconscious step closer to the fallen angel's side, she couldn't have gotten more confirmation of the nature of their relationship from the two of them if she'd tried. She retreats lazily, arms folding, to resume her post by the bridge and nearer to a frowning Sam.

"Can't blame a girl for trying. You couldn't have dragged him down into the mud _after_ we used him to take out that smarmy bastard Crowley with him? Oh, wait. I know. . ." There's venom in Meg's voice, now, a look of pure contempt fixed on Castiel too intently to be just 'remembered.' "You _gave_ Crowley all his power, didn't you angel-cakes? Way I look at it, you rubes _owe_ me. I went to the _mat_ in that warehouse. I took down the Hellhound. I was tortured. I. . ."

"You know, Meg, having difficulty remembering why I'm letting you live again." Dean interjects, fingers clenching and unclenching on Ruby's blade, biting off each word angrily. He knows, Sam knows, that Meg's motivation had been anything but pure in that situation—and she'd tried to smoke out on them, first. Castiel, for all his flat expression, for all he's maintaining that angelic composure again, is letting the venomous words of the demon sting at him. _Cas_  is her intended target, and everything is a raw nerve with him now.

She's digging her hooks into all the right places to hurt the fallen angel, and Dean never should have let her get this damned familiar with the three of them. They're handing her _ammunition_.

"Oh, relax, cupcake. I'm not trying to move in on you two lovebirds. What I want, the _only_ thing I want, is Crowley dead. We stick around here, we're going to find a lot more where these two mooks came from, let alone all the super-fun questions we'll face when the next minivan full of happy little camping families comes 'round the bend and sees you three standing over two dead Ranger Ricks. Let's take this show on the road. Everything's coming down the pipes tonight: you work with me, we last til' the ball drops, then you three can go frolicking off and I go on my merry way, mmkay?"

"You haven't even told us what's going on" Sam protests irritably, but he's holstering the Colt, looking at the two park rangers and the steep drop beneath them that will hide the bodies for a while longer, perhaps until they're done in the park.

"Heaven hid its rogue nukes here. . . and Hell's decided it's time to stop playing footsie with the Trickster and go for the kill. I can't let Crowley get his hands on that kind of power . . . and _you_ guys are siding with the God Squad on this, I hear. So . . . you coming?"

The silence between them, as they communicate in glances and come to a conclusion, is answer enough. Turning on her heel, Meg takes the lead. "Great. Let's go hotwire one of the park ranger's jeeps or something. There's no way in hell I'm playing 'Man versus Wild' with you three."

 

 

* * *

 

Damn this whole town _stinks_. Bobby figures the natives must get used to the smell of Salt Lake City, like people who live near factories get used to that stench. He doesn't plan to stay long enough to become accustomed to it. Just meet up with a group of hunters and find out how the hell they've got things so twisted that his adopted sons are considered murderers instead of the heroes they are.

"Corned Beef and Hash with eggs over easy, toast, and coffee. Keep it coming, please." Gotta love a place that does breakfast all day, Bobby thinks, having chosen a large table where he can put his back to a wall. As he gives the waitress his order at the Blue Plate Diner, he tells her that's he's expecting some people and the table'll fill up. He scans the room to see if he recognizes any one – any hunter, that is. Utah isn't one of Bobby's favorite places to hunt because the Latter-Day Saints don't like other people poaching on their turf. The Mormons don't have an official policy on the supernatural, but unofficially, the church chose and trained up hunters with the same brisk efficiency and modern technology it applied to everything it did.

May as well eat breakfast, Bobby snorts to himself, a burger just ain't the same without a beer, a real beer, not this watered-down three-percent piss they call beer in Salt Lake City. 'Nother reason he dislikes Utah.

The Impala acts as a magnet, drawing in hunters in singles and pairs until the restaurant is almost overwhelmed in the scent of Old Spice and machismo. Bobby's meal is delivered, and like he has a homing beacon set, six other men settle around his table. The LDS hunters are easy to spot. They look like older Elders; Bobby amuses himself with that assessment. He hasn't had any of the evangelical Mormon Elders darken his doors – doors that were burned down along with his house – at Singer Salvage since he got tired of the one persistent pair and answered his door in his boxers, beer in one hand and scratching his balls with the other.

Another pair was obviously from one of the old hunting families, probably the Campbells. Bobby had dealings with them several times when John Winchester first started hunting – the Campbell matriarchs were determined to take the boys from their father, especially because John was determined to hunt – untrained – by the family's exacting standards. The Campbells considered Sam and Dean theirs, and Campbell blood – the oldest American hunting family – ran through those boys' veins through their mother, but he and his boys knew family is more than blood. Bobby thought their father would be a better choice. Sometimes he wondered if he had backed the right horse in that race.

Being a hunter is more than blood, too, Bobby thinks. Years of training, studying, and doing have earned him only begrudging respect from that infamous hunting dynasty. But Bobby knows – in a pinch – these Campbell Hunters are going to come down on the side of Sam and Dean staying alive at least. He knows the family contacted them in Albuquerque, offering them teaching positions in the compound. He's tallying people at the table into two columns, friendly and unfriendly - maybe not foe unless they want to hurt his boys.

"Joe," Bobby acknowledges Joseph Baker. He knows him from the Harvelle's Roadhouse crew. William and Ellen Harvelle had been information brokers and safe haven to many hunters over the years, including Baker and his partner Ray Collins. Collins was one of the two hunters killed here in Salt Lake this week; the other was one of the church's men who had been investigating. "Sorry to hear about Ray. You need any help?"

"Thanks, Singer." Baker nods toward the Mormon Hunters. "The local group helped give him a Hunter's funeral."

Despite how things had soured between him and Rufus, he knew the pain of losing a hunting partner. There was a hell of a bond got built when you put your life in another man's hands and trusted him to watch your back, and losing that was something that stuck with you. He nods to Baker, a silent acknowledgement, before his eyes slide to the last man at the table: stout, mid-40s, Hispanic. And he looks _familiar_.

Hostile brown eyes meet his across the table, and as he raises a questioning eyebrow the other man introduces himself flatly.

"Ruben Rivera."

Bobby has a hand on his gun before the final syllable rolls out, and finds himself in a wrist-lock under the table from the Mormon sitting at his shoulder, as if the man had expected the action. "Neutral ground for a meet."

"I'll give you neutral. . ." Bobby growls, but he doesn't break his stare from Rivera. Rivera, who had beat and stomped an injured and feverish Dean Winchester nearly to death in October, in San Antonio. In that moment, Bobby's playing over every furious word from Castiel as he informed him of the attack in a voice quaking with rage. He recalls every phone call since from Sam, acting as the boy's emotional support in the aftermath the same way he always has when it was Dean worrying about his baby brother.

And he remembers a shaky camera video he cadged out of George Mackey during the past months of worrying about his boys without seeing them. A video he will never admit to having seen, that broke his damned heart to watch as a man who found it impossible to shut the hell up failed to give a single word of retort while this sorry excuse for a human being called him every homophobic slur in the books. It literally took a miracle, a jackass angel, to pull the boy through without brain damage.

"This asshat has a warrant out for his arrest because he attempted to _murder_ a hunter." The two Bobby has pegged for Campbells turn measuring eyes toward Rivera, and Bobby is grimly satisfied to note the family has this man on their radar.

"You're talking like Dean Winchester's even _human._ I pegged that sorry fuck for a monster months ago, and. . ."

"You're a lying psychopathic _fuck_ , Rivera."

Baker looks over at Bobby. "Singer, we lost two hunters here including my partner, you get me? We gotta keep first thing first, and that's to find the scum who's _torturing_ decent folks, not just killing. Someone wants something they think we hunters know. You're gonna have to put away your personal shit 'til we deal with this." Bobby scowls, but he gives a short nod: business first.

Rivera calls himself a hunter, might have some believing him, but Bobby knows he's a thief and a coward. He also knows now for sure who's is stirring up trouble for his boys.

Things settle into a grudging and frozen facsimile of politeness as the waitress returns to take orders from the group. The rest of the introductions are made. George Heywood and Jonas Wallace are the two Mormon Hunters. They are suit-wearing clean cut, early 40s, ex-military types who could show up anywhere and be immediately mistaken for Federal agents. They seem to be neutral at this point, or at least Bobby can't tell if they have condemned his boys.

Bobby's happy to see his instincts haven't lost their edge when the other pair, men who look to be in their mid-50s. introduce themselves as brothers - Russell and Roland Campbell – they are top tier Campbell Clan hunters out of California. Bobby knows their names by reputation: now that the Campbells are on his radar, he may've spent some of his research time on figuring who he needed to worry about, and abused Samuel Campbell's abandoned library to do so. They stake their claim quickly; Roland being the more talkative one as Russell sits looking dangerously at Rivera. "We might not have had a hand in training them, but Dean and Sam Winchester are our cousins - family. We don't believe the crap someone-" with a glare at Rivera " – is spewing about them being involved here, torturing hunters. We were already on our way following Demonic omens."

Rivera snorts in reply. He has only vaguely heard about a Campbell Clan Hunting family, wasn't sure what he heard wasn't myth – a family of Hunters who killed vampires on the Mayflower on their way over to the Americas, been training hunters and passing down knowledge ever since then. He also hadn't been aware of a connection to the two younger hunters who had cost him a cozy living in San Antonio – and he is still surprised to hear Dean Winchester is up and seemingly okay. He must be getting soft if a beat down he gave can be shaken off so easily by some queer.

Sneering, he folds his arms and throws out the challenge, intent on sullying the Winchester's name.

"Where are your pretty boys, Singer, resting up? Do you take turns with them?" There's no doubting his meaning, or the crudeness in his tone. "Seen the Impala, but I don't see them. If they're not with you, how do we know they're not behind this?"

Bobby sips from his coffee cup, keeping his anger in check, but his throat is tight with repressed fury. "The boys and I spent Christmas in Montana together and drove to Utah together. You suggesting I had something to do with this?" Bobby's attempt at casual comes out challenging, but Rivera's not paying close attention.

The Campbell Hunters, Baker, Wallace and Heywood, exchange glances. Weighing in on the unanswered question, Baker drawls, "I trust Bobby Singer with my life. He has never lied to me or let me down. He says they're not in on this, I trust him."

Bobby nods, once, shortly. Accepting the support, but his gaze doesn't swing from Rivera, who's incapable of keeping his fool mouth shut.

"Oh, yeah, because they're just a fine upstanding group full of alcoholics, addicts and queers. That's who I'd put my life on the line with."

Bobby is considering the weaponized applications of his cheap aluminum fork. If looks could kill, he wouldn't need one. But he figures he could do some damage without ever reaching for the gun.

Wallace pins Rivera with a stern look, and perhaps he realizes he's saving the man's life when he speaks slowly and clearly. "You need to get out of town. We've got problems on our hands and we don't need a snake like you spreading poison."

"Poison? Thought you guys acknowledged homos as a poison of sorts?" Rivera presses on, and waves his hand, trying to come across as reasonable. "You know, forget their lifestyle choices. Thought you'd be wondering why these Winchesters are still walking and talking after dying? Why even after they've been dead and gone, they're back again. Why they've been known to consort with demons, sell their souls, start the apocalypse. Hell, why ain't you doing something about it. By reputation, you've got representatives from the three largest groups of hunters there are…the Campbells, the LDS group, and your group, Singer."

Heywood and the Campbell brothers eye Rivera again. Russell breaks his silence, and the quiet threat is all the more intimidating for being the first words out of his mouth, "Rivera, I'm going to count to ten, then I am going to help Singer shoot you."

Rivera didn't wait past "one, two, three…" before hurrying outside and away. Self-preservation. It's how useless shits like Rivera manage to keep drawing breath when people like his boys pay the cost.

Bobby stands down a little, but when he sets down his coffee cup he can still feel the ridges from the rim in his hands and he is anything but relaxed. "We ain't gonna get anything accomplished if Rivera is in the picture."

Finishing up his waffles, Heywood speaks up. "Persona non grata. We'll run him out of town. But there's some of what he says that we need to discuss. That's why we're here – besides the deaths that seem to be by demon attack."

Bobby reaches over to get the coffee carafe from near the Campbells. Stretches a little. Then he asks Baker if he's gonna stick around.

"Thanks, but no thanks, Singer. I ain't really up to demons, and looks like you got enough hunters here that you don't need my help." He stands up, shakes hands around and leaves. That means the LDS, The Campbells, and Bobby Singer are left to decide what the next step should be.

 

 

* * *

 

There's blood underneath his fingernails and crusted in his cuticles, traced into the lines of his fingers and threatening to mingle with the small open crescents he has driven into his palm with his nails, and Castiel can't handle it any longer. The moment they reach the lodge, he breaks away from the Winchesters and Meg in the parking lot, rubbing his palm against the coarse fabric of his jeans over and over, as if he can scrape the demon's blood, that park ranger's blood, from his hand.

"You really shouldn't let him go wandering off." Meg intones from behind him, completely failing to lower her voice. "Anyone could snatch him up."

It puts his teeth on edge, makes him tense as Dean catches him by the elbow before he makes it three paces, and pulls him along gently. "I can handle myself," Castiel grates out, yanking his arm away, but Dean's persistent and undeterred, his answering low response is for Castiel's ears only, part command and part comfort.

"Ignore her, Cas. You can't let her get under your skin. C'mere." Dean looks back, and some form of silent communication seems to take place between the brothers that Castiel misses the meaning of, but he lets Dean lace their fingers together and tug him away from the lodge proper.

(He's transferring the blood from his hands onto Dean's, but that's just a poignant analogy for their relationship, and Castiel's head is throbbing and his body aches and he can _hear_ them, hear them calling him, and not quite a week ago he could have _handled_ this, two round pills, one oblong, a green tablet, washed down with whiskey to make it taste like Dean, and he _hates_ this, hates himself for being weak . . .)

The cabin is dated and sparse, scattered detached shelters for people who came to the park not for the accommodations of the overprice park lodge behind them, but for the access to the natural wonders with the safety of a place to return to each night. Dean has the lock open on the nearest one before Castiel fully registers where they're going, and has Castiel pressed to the closing door before his mind catches up with his body.

The room is freezing as Dean shucks his jacket off of him and rucks his shirts up over his abdomen with his wandering hands, but Dean's mouth is a firebrand, possession and need in each graze of his lips and tongue, and Castiel finds himself drawn into responding with equal fervor.

Dean is using his hands, his mouth, his body to warm and anchor the angel as he strips them both of as much clothing as he can reach. The room is cold and Dean is shivering; he can feel Cas trembling in his arms too. He snatches the thin bedspread from the queen bed closest to the door and throws it on top of the other bed, pushing the dark haired man back onto the mattress, only to sit up grumbling to remove his hiking boots. Castiel follows suit, but manages this task faster than Dean. Castiel takes the upper hand, pushing Dean back and gently unwrapping his knee, trailing kisses over it and up as his hands travel up further too. Castiel is not weak, and he wants Dean to know this. He wants Dean to call his name as he claims his body.

When things are less hectic, when they are both spent, Dean captures Castiel's face between his palms and strokes his thumbs through the dark stubble on his cheeks. Traces Cas's lips with his tongue, teasingly. Puts his forehead against the angel's to locks gazes with those sky blue eyes.

It's a stolen moment, somewhere between a 'last night on earth' and a commitment that by all accounts Dean should be running like hell from, but it's _them_ and he needs Cas to understand, to hear him without the drugs and the guilt and the voices ringing in his head and the demon whispering in his ear, and this is the best way he knows how.

"Doesn't matter Cas – none of it. Leave it behind. We all did what we had to do, and this, us – this is real. You and me, together, helping each other stay the good guys now, be strong together." He stops teasing and joins their lips, deepening into a kiss, sinking into it as though time no longer had meaning, until they had to break off to breathe. "You, me, Sam, and Bobby – still Team Free Will. All of us doing what we can to save people. You hear me Cas? _This_ is real."

 

 

* * *

 

Bobby asks that the cards be on the table. The Campbells start the confessions. It's true the two older hunters were heading to Salt Lake City anyway, but these two had heard from the family's chief researcher, their cousin Price Campbell in Albuquerque who recommends that Sam and Dean, and their new partner Cas, get brought to base and learn more about the family way of doing things – and the family's matriarchs said bring them in. That's the plan. Figure out what was going on here, fix it, then drag the trio of younger hunters to the California base for their own good.

"These are grown men you're talkin' bout. Has it occurred to you they may not want to go? You talking kidnapping?"

Roland Campbell looks at Bobby, and a hint of what Bobby sees is steel lights his hazel eyes. "I can be pretty persuasive. Those boys are blood and been knocking around homeless for quite some time now. John Winchester didn't do them any favors on that. Who knows, they may see the point of it once they finally hear what the Family Board has to offer."

Roland sits back, figuring he's said enough.

Russell pipes up, "We are not going to let them die – for what seems like the not first time – without trying to mend the rift. Singer, I'd bet dollars to donuts you'd do the same if they were your kin.

 _If they were my kin,_ Bobby snorts. ' _If?'_ Staring across the tables at the Campbells, Bobby has no question in his mind as to who Sam and Dean's family is. Mary Winchester, rest her soul, was a distant memory for Dean and an ideal placed on a pedestal for Sam. John Winchester had become a revenge-obsessed fool who dragged his boys hunt to hunt and forced them into soldiers. Every lesson those boys learned about 'family' that hasn't twisted them into a knot they learned sitting in Singer Salvage Yard learning to play catch and fix motors.

He'll be damned if some distant third cousin tries to claim more kinship to his boys than him, because of some weak ass blood tie. Those boys, and hell even Dean's cloud-hopping stick-up-the-ass angel, they were _his_ family.

Heywood from the LDS group wipes his hand across his mouth. He says their group has news about the Winchesters too. Tracing family lineages and studying some of the lost books of the Bible, the Mormons have determined that there are blood lines that seem to have close relationships to angels. The group says that John Winchester and his sons were of one such line. "We'd like a chance to get some DNA testing, and to interview them about what they know about the current upsets amongst the angels and demons."

Yeah. . . that just wasn't going to end well for the home team, and no one was bleeding any of them to find out how they ticked. Bobby'll have to lose both these groups and get back in touch with the boys, haul them out of the wilderness now that they know the score. Seems like the shit has hit the fan: angels, demons and now even the hunters want them.

 

* * *

 

Thirty minutes.

During perhaps the most awkward conversation in a history of awkward sibling conversations, thirty minutes had been set down as law. Sam Winchester, third wheel extraordinaire and (as far as Sam himself was concerned) unsung hero and sainted brother, had instituted the thirty minute rule. If they were sharing a room, thirty minutes was the maximum amount of time Dean could kick him out without Sam throwing a bucket of ice water on them (metaphorical or literal) just to be able to get back to his own stuff.

Maybe putting that thirty minutes in the middle of the potential final battle between Heaven and Hell was pushing the limits of the intended use of the thirty minute rule, but Dean always had figured rules were more like general guidelines than actual. . . well, rules. Castiel had been on the brink, and they needed all of them in the game. Sam had rolled his eyes but nodded when he dragged Cas away, and that was all the conversation they'd needed to have about it for thirty minutes.

So when thirty five minutes rolls around and they're still tying their boots on, the sarcastic quip is on his lips and waiting for Sam to pound on the door and tell them to get a move on, because the end of the world waits for no man unless he's a Winchester.

There's no pounding at the door.

There's no cockblocking little brother determined to make him keep to his word.

Looking up as he tightens the straps of the hilt for his angelic blade around his forearm, Castiel's peaceful expression clouds over again as he reads the faint lines in Dean's expressive face, the way he checks how his gun clears the holster and leaves it unsnapped and ready to draw as he pulls his coat on over it. The tension that's bled back into his hunter's muscles too quickly after he'd been sated.

"Trouble?" Castiel keeps his voice low, and accepts the slight shrug from Dean as answer, and the way he eventually gives in to instinct and draws his gun as he eases open the door as a signal for how to proceed.

From the doorway to the cabin, everything _seems_ sound. The jeep that they were stealing was still there, Sam was in his seat, Meg was waiting with a stolen gossip magazine on her knee. On second glance, however. . . Sam was slumped in his seat, and as Dean registers it, he's already flying again.

The log walls and steel doorframe are unforgiving, and as the demons step around the corner Meg drops her hand back down after the negligent gesture with such violent effect, tossing her magazine into the back seat and sliding out of the jeep to flash Castiel her sweet smile.

"I _did_ warn them that anyone could snatch you up." 


	5. Chapter 5

 

  
_They say that life's a carousel_  
_Spinning fast, you've got to ride it well_  
_The world is full of Kings and Queens_  
_Who blind your eyes then steal your dreams_  
_It's Heaven and Hell, oh well._  
_And they'll tell you black is really white_  
_The moon is just the sun at night_  
_And when you walk in golden halls_  
_You get to keep the gold that falls_  
_It's Heaven and Hell_

"Heaven and Hell" by Black Sabbath

* * *

Someday, someone is going to toss the boys tied onto the railroad tracks, twirl their mustache, laugh manically, and Sam isn't going to be the least bit surprised. They already have the ropes thing down, and being tied back to back with his brother is something right out of Indiana Jones, so they might as well go back to the classics.

Of course, Meg getting the drop on them and then tying them to things. . . that's practically becoming a hobby of hers.

Suppressing a groan, Sam raises his head slightly, wishing for his former bangs to cover his face as he covertly scopes out what little he can see of the scene around them through slitted eyes. There isn't much he can suss out, but he can feel Dean's weight at his back, and that gives him something to work from. Nudging his shoulder against his brother's, Sam rouses Dean back to consciousness, and by the loll of his brother's head he can confirm they've been drugged and kept out for hours.

On the plus side, that means they're being kept alive deliberately. Downside, it means they're being kept alive deliberately for a _reason_.

Bouncing his brother's head off of his shoulder, Sam hisses quietly under his breath. "Wake up."

Dean groans, head flopping forward, and slurs under his breath "Damnit, Sammy, you _trying_ to break my neck?"

"Your chiropractic needs? Kinda the least of our concerns." Sam grumbles back, trying to keep his voice down, but he needn't have bothered. Dean's next thought sets his brother fully awake, bringing his head up.

"Where's Cas?" Dean has confirmed his brother's whereabouts. He's instantly on to looking for his angel.

"I'm here." A voice grinds out from the dimness, and by the echo they're in a cave of some sort. By the shuffle of movement, they're not alone. A match rasps a thin solitary flame that illuminates the pale features of Meg fully, who smiles slowly at the boys as she drops the match. A fire pit catches with a quiet roar, the flames unnaturally red, and Dean can't help but think of Hell. The memory is enough to jolt him entirely back to alertness.

"Welcome back, boys. You're just in time for the big crescendo." Meg mocks cheerily, as from the mouth of the cave the shuffle of footsteps can be heard, half a dozen of the stunt demons that Dean had been pretty sure Meg had run out of a while back in her crusade.

It's Castiel, on his knees at the edge of the fire that catches Dean's eyes and freezes him in place. Bound as he is, there's something resigned and loose to his posture, and it hits Dean with a dull jolt that Castiel's been drugged as well, dropping his eyelids to half shuttered. He doesn't seem as if he's been compliant in it, however: blood, some dry, some fresh, has spattered his chin, and his nose is bleeding freely. Thin knife marks paint his bare chest, marring the edges of the scars he's gathered, and Dean knows torture well enough to recognize someone's warm-up game.

"You backstabbing _bitch_." Dean hisses out, eyes flicking to Meg, who laughs.

"I'm a _demon_ , halfwit."

Castiel growls quietly at the insult to Dean, raising his chin and fixing a glare on Meg above him, where he kneels at her feet, trussed and bound. She smirks down at him, and looks back at Dean as she draws a fingernail along one of the lines of blood that flare up over his back and onto his shoulder, and Dean's fairly certain he doesn't want to see what's been done to Castiel's back. "Besides, you don't even know the game yet." Her voice dips to conspiratorial levels. "Watch this, Dean-o."

"You." She calls out, stabbing a finger randomly at one of the demons indicatively, before handing him a straight razor. "The Winchesters are awake. Why don't we show the angel what we have planned for them?"

The razor gleams red with Castiel's blood, and tied together as they are Sam can feel Dean go rigid staring at it. Alastair's blade. Dean knows it, knows the weight of it, knows how it feels to have it flay the flesh from his skin, and how it felt hot and sticky with blood in his own hands. Meg's mouth hitches at the corner knowingly, and she winks at Dean across the distance between them, one torturer to another, and one protégé to the next.

"Dean. . ." Sam's not facing out toward the cave, and he's straining himself, pressing against the ropes that bind them, looking for any way to slip free, and the sudden _silence_ from his brother is probably the most disconcerting thing in the room. It's almost a relief to feel the full-body shudder that shakes words loose from Dean as the demon approaches.

"When I get out of this, and I _will_ get out of this, I am going to send you back to hell and let Crowley pick his teeth with your bones."

Meg snorts quietly. "Sure you will. Shhh, though, Dean. You're gonna miss the best part, innit that right Cas?" Her fingernails drive into the thin cuts on Castiel's shoulders, drawing a low grunt from him but no change in expression as blood wells from it, his eyes fixed intently on Dean across the fire.

The blade rises, a leer drawing across the demon's face as he brings the blade swinging down at Dean's unprotected face. . .

And the demon hurtles into the cave wall as if hit by a Mack truck before the blade can finish its downward arc.

Castiel sags, blood dribbling over his chin again, eyes slammed shut, entire body wracked with pain, and twisting in the ropes. Dean's confusion is palpable, his concern, and it's Sam that recognizes what's going on first. He's seen it before: in a cave in San Antonio, disarmed and injured and blood-soaked, Castiel doubled over in a cave much like this one. He'd drawn deep on that small fragment of Grace he'd shaped into a soul, and thrown an assailant with his sheer force of will, paying the cost in pain and blood. He'd saved Sam's life and proved how not-human he was all in one moment. And he'd done it for _Dean_ , because of Dean, because Dean was barely hanging on and being rushed to the emergency room.

Sam's curse is low and inventive, and right about now he wishes he could get his hands around Meg's throat. It's a _game_.

"I've been cutting the sigils on your angel here for _hours_ , you see. Couldn't get a peep out of him, though. Most people'd be screaming, but I know his type. Guilty conscience ones, you know what I mean?" She offers that grin again, the one that invites Dean to discuss torture like co-workers at the water cooler, and Dean's scowl deepens. She winks, and circles Castiel and the fire pit slowly, gesturing dismissively at the demon picking himself up off the floor, sending him back to his tasks. "Had to get him to stop trying to exorcise all of my help any time I took the gag off, so I figured why not wake you boys up, give him a bit of incentive to cooperate. That's when we found out your angel here _can't_ get it up unless it's about you." Dropping to a knee in front of Castiel, she catches his chin in her hand, grinning at him. "It's so _sweet_ , I think I vomited in my mouth a bit."

Meeting her gaze defiantly, Castiel runs a tongue over his teeth, lets his breath out slowly, and spits in her face.

Dean can't see her expression as she rises back to her feet, but he can see her hand raise and clench into a fist, and Castiel's back arcs painfully, head thrown back, jaw clenched to keep himself from screaming.

_The best torturers never get their hands dirty._

Stooping down, Meg scoops up Castiel's discarded flannel shirt and wipes spittle and blood off of her face, and some part of Dean is objecting because _he_ bought Cas that shirt, blue and gray checked flannel that's Dean's favorite on him, that Castiel has started to wear to the point that it's worn slightly at the seams, and it's a ridiculous thing for his mind to fixate on as Castiel slumps; panting, pained and resigned.

"What's the end game here, Meg? This is about the Grigori, right? You don't want those assholes out any more than we do. . ." Dean prompts, because they need to _know_ , they need to fill in these gaps in their knowledge, and because a monologueing bad guy is a bad guy who isn't torturing his lover in front of him.

Castiel shakes his head slightly, before raising his chin from his chest to look at the Winchesters again and something lurches in Dean's chest: he doesn't look _right_. "It's her. It's been her all along."

Meg rumples a hand over Castiel's hair as if she's petting a beloved dog, and smirks down at him. "Cookie for you."

Sam's doing something behind Dean, and he's trying to cover the motion for both of them, looking for something, anything, a sharp outcropping on the rock, a shard of anything that he can saw their hands apart with, even dipping his fingertips into pockets trying to see if all of his and Dean's stash of box cutters, pocket knives and lock picks have been spirited away, and Dean's fixed on Castiel, meeting his eyes again. Drug-addled, pain-ridden, guilty (the fact that Meg is _right_ is infuriating), his stare is as intense as it has ever been between them, electric and disorienting. "Cas. . . ?"

"Think about her loyalties, Dean. Azazel. . ."

"My father. . ." Meg adds with a faint purr, amused by Castiel putting it together for them, her ego stroked by the attention. Sam flits his gaze over his shoulder at Meg briefly, his jaw bunching, recalling the possessed form of Meg Masters leaning over a bowl of blood and sending messages home to her dear old dad. Dean recalls Azazel's hissed words about his own 'family,' that had been struck down at Dean's hands.

"A _fallen angel_ become Demon." Castiel continues as if uninterrupted, his words coming from far away as the logic gives him some thin level of focus. "Then Lucifer, and his plans for the world."

Father to all the demons of hell. Another angel turned from Heaven. Dean sneers at Meg, green eyes narrowed. "So what, this is all about Daddy Issues?"

"Oh, like you're one to talk. Remember, I've _met_ your family, been in your brother's head too. And let's not even _talk_ about Castiel here and his screwed up attempts to fill _his_ Daddy's shoes." Cas flinches, in a way the physical torture hadn't drawn from him, but the truth is a blade of its own and Meg wields it just as skillfully. "Clarence here is right, though, it _was_ all pretty obvious. Asmodeus, Ba'el. . . the _last_ thing Crowley wants is the heirs of Hell, Lucifer's brothers, free from their cage."

"And you _do_? How do you know that's going to go any better for _you,_ sweetheart?"

Meg laughs as she picks the razor up from the floor; slowly swiping the blood from the blade onto Castiel's shirt, before tossing it aside as she gently folds the blade in on the handle, setting it onto an uneven rock ledge behind her. Castiel's blade, Ruby's knife, there's blood on each. The Colt sits half-wrapped in Castiel's t-shirt. "Don't you get it, boys? I got the idea from _you_. Riding along with you often enough, I came to think. . . gee, it _is_ handy having your own pet angel, isn't it?"

Castiel lowers his head, and there's something so _broken_ in the set of his shoulders that Dean struggles against the ropes again, wanting to reach for him, until Sam hisses a warning under his breath after taking an elbow to the ribs. Dean grabs his brother's wrist loosely, fingers numb from lack of circulation, shifting to get his feet beneath him in his kneeling pose, and digging the toe of his boot into his brother's flank.

Box cutter. They _always_ miss the boot. Probably because no one with any concept of comfort would keep a box cutter down their boot on a thirty-mile hike. His brother gets the drift after a moment, and now it's a silent struggle to try and dip his fingers into the tight press of Dean's boot, straining to reach with bound hands.

"It was all very inspirational, right up until you _broke_ him Dean-o. Now he's about as useful as a hapless little puppy dog. _My_ angels, though. . . well, you can _feel_ them, can't you? Cas can. . ." Her hand snakes out, fingers tangling in Castiel's hair, pulling his head back at a painful angle and baring him to her. "Can't you, Cas? He's tapping into their juice here. That's _their_ power he's throwing around for you."

"They are _mad."_ Castiel hisses, and pulled whipcord tight against her knee, _Cas_ looks half-mad. Blood on his face, crimson firelight reflecting on his skin, eyes electric and dark hair disheveled and matted, he looks _demonic_ as she drops him again, letting him fix a disconcerting stare on Dean that stills Dean's tongue, tightens his throat with fear.

Any defenses Castiel had are _gone_. The Grigori no longer whisper in his mind, they speak in ringing honeyed tongues and the _only_ thing that has kept him grounded has been the threat to the Winchesters. A threat that these mad, fallen brothers are inadvertently or purposefully protecting the Hunters from, granting Castiel the strength to deal with the lesser demons. Castiel's Kryptonite, the thing that brings this Superman down every time: he will do whatever it takes to keep them safe, embrace whatever power, however poisonous. He has thrown his mind wide open, let the Grigori in and borrowed their power, to keep the Winchesters alive.

"Cas. . . Stay with me, buddy." Dean whispers harshly, and he wills Sam to go faster, wills the ropes to part, ignores Meg's footsteps and tries to reach for that. . . _something_ that seems to tie him to Cas as he twists his hands against the ropes, trying to loosen them and counting the skin chafing from his wrists as fair payment if he can get them _out_ of there.

Meg kneels down next to Dean, and Dean feels Sam freeze in his sawing behind him as the demoness leans into the danger zone, skirting the threat Castiel poses by keeping her hands on her thighs as she leans in, her lips against Dean's ear, but there's nothing unthreatening to her words. "You don't get it, Dean. He needed to bleed here, for us, and he _has_. Needed him to be the little angel that could, dig out some of that old angel mojo, and thanks to you he _has_. We've lit the fuse, now we're just counting down the clock. Tick. Tick. Tick. Don't worry, though. I've got one last gift for the both of you."

Raising her head, blood red lips spreading into a grin, she pushes herself back to her feet. "Let's start this New Year out with a bang."

Behind her, Castiel raises his head slowly, fixing a hate-filled stare at Meg's back, and Dean knows the fight hasn't left the fallen angel yet. He just wishes that was a reassuring fact.

 

 

* * *

 

Bobby is disgusted with himself as he guns the motor of the Impala, heading south again – he thought about trying to divert anyone who might be following him, but he has enough respect for the other hunters to know they too will end up in St. George. There just ain't all that many places to go in Utah. He needs to get there first, he thinks, trusting the mighty Chevy engine to get there faster than most of the modern crap people are driving these days. He's got to get back to the boys, pronto.

Bobby can't believe he let that slime bucket, Ruben Rivera, walk out of the diner alive. He's kinda sorry he talked Castiel out of killing him in that phone call from San Antonio. He thought he was doing the right thing talking the fallen angel down, now he wishes he hadn't no matter what line that meant he was ready to jump over for his boys. He's ready to tear up the rules and write new ones to keep them safe and free.

Give the LDS group some blood to study? Thanks but no thanks. Bobby wonders if that group even _knows_ how many spells and tracking devises can be devised using drops of blood.

Watch the boys get dragged off to the Campbell's California training post? Might sound reasonable at first, but he was friends with John and remembers how that group tried to steal the boys away from the grieving man when Mary died. Bobby had helped John, hooking him into the hunters' network, Pastor Jim, the Harvelles, Caleb, and Elkins. Got John trained up and taught the tricks of the trade – raw skill and combat tactics, John already had that. Without the boys, Bobby believes John would have ended it all. He doesn't even want to consider how many times having those boys to think about made him put his own gun away.

Now he wonders if keeping the boys with their obsessed father didn't lead right here, like it was inevitable that they would end up right here - with the boys clinging to each other and Castiel to keep going. Sacrificing everything else they could have had or done to save people they didn't know, and to have that sacrifice sullied by scum like Rivera.

When Bobby is still 100 miles out from St. George, the weather turns bad. Thunder rattles the earth strongly enough that he can feel it through the suspension, lightning bursts out in long fingers stretching toward the wilderness that is the many state and national parks sprawled like a string of pearls on the left side of the road. When the rain starts it's red, but Bobby blames it on the wind picking up dirt from the red sandstone. Then he notices how the red clings to the windshield – how the oozing liquid stinks like iron, and Bobby Singer's no fool and no stranger to violence. New Year's eve and it's raining _blood_ , this can't be good.

First things first. Bobby puts on his official voice and calls the park service and local police, as Homeland Security he commands them to get people under cover.

 

 

* * *

 

Zion National Park Headquarters had already been shutting down the park, closing out the lodge, bringing in campers – they had found the bodies of two park rangers, and they had had break ins of a cabin and thefts of several park service vehicles. All in all, it was one of the worst days in the history of the park. After doing the best they could in emptying the vast interior, the park police locked down the entrances, putting down barriers, and blocking any further entry. The park police withdrew further when it started raining blood.

The earth under the park trembles. There really is no other way to describe it – earthquakes usually start with the largest, then the aftershocks taper off. This is exactly opposite. The rumbling and shaking of the earth grows stronger each time and the intermissions shorter. Rocks that had balanced for hundreds of years topple, beautiful arches crumble the bouncing of boulders down cliff sides crashes in counterpoint to the growling thunder of the skies. Steam rises from areas with hot springs running under them, adding to the confusion and the noise. Lightning catches in the steam clouds rising from the ground.

As midnight approaches, as the calendar pages teeter to 2013, the furor of the sky and the earth worsens. The last time this patch of earth was so stricken, the forces of Heaven won the battle. This time, taken unaware, the angels following Gabriel are off fighting Crowley's horde, and only one fallen angel is there when the boulder Michael placed to contain Lucifer's two strongest fighters cracks, the sound of stone above them breaking with a sound like thunder. Within the cave, Castiel throws his head back, eyes closed, and breathes out sharply: along the cave walls, Enochian symbols flare to life, as ancient as time, twisting and winding through the rock face, laid into the grain of the stone itself by the will of God. Meg spins in place, her eyes wide in surprise, and this isn't _her_ doing. The light around them seems to pulse, keeping pace with a rapid, racing heart.

With a tortured groan of earth, the Great White Throne above them splinters, fractures, and the pieces fly apart and scatter.

Castiel bellows across the cave to Dean and Sam, a rough command wrenched out of him with fury and purpose. " _Shut your eyes_!"

These are angels, fallen angels, who have been trapped deep in the ground since Michael, God's Most Righteous Angel, locked their leader in a cage in hell. Michael's Army drove the first Earth Garrison, the first Watchmen God had sent to guide and guard his children, into hell for inventing sin and encouraging God's newest children to partake. Millennium later it is hard to remember that God had made man in his image. Free Will and the whispering of the Grigori had smudged that beauty. Lucifer's minions –the Grigori - with Lucifer claiming always that he loved his Father – wrecked his creation, shattered the plan out of envy, jealousy, pride, lust, greed, sloth, and wrath. Shortly afterwards, God had walked away.

With a blast of achingly pure white light, two of the most powerful originators of human sin are set _free_.

Meg and the demons are gone. Castiel feels the deep stab of regret that his warning to the Winchesters likely gave Meg time to scamper back under whatever rock she had been hiding, but that doesn't matter right now. Castiel is the focus of two of the strongest angels he has ever encountered, two of the eldest outside of the original four. Their voices ring and echo in his mind: disoriented, unbound, they need answers – how long has it been? Where are Lucifer and Michael?

Castiel, fallen angel, mostly human, is battered with so much energy, until Asmodeus softens her approach wondering what in their Father's creation could have done such damage to one of her kin. What could break this Seraph, bring him to a flickering and fragile tiny spark of Grace shared with the men who are lying tied together and unconscious nearby?

_Brother? Castiel? I see the sigils carved into you. I smell that it was your blood that set us free. Little brother – what can I do for you? How can I return this favor?_

Castiel struggles to be freed, and then it is done with Asmodeus's thought. He scrambles to Dean and Sam, thankful to find them still unconscious, with no blood dripping from eye sockets or ears. Asmodeus frees them from their bonds as well. She reaches for her younger brother, and infuses some of her Grace into this vessel her little brother wears as his own skin – healing the bleeding wounds, sealing closed the skin perfectly, but he cradles the humans to him, refusing her further.

What has he _done?_

Ba'el is having a harder time than Asmodeus adjusting to freedom; he wants, wants, wants, but cannot say what it is he wants, nor can he stop moving until Asmodeus sets him a task. _Go, storm hell, find our Lord, and find the other Grigori. Lucifer will have answers. Report back as soon as possible. This world is far different than it was when we were trapped. We need answers._

Castiel has grown still. He has drawn jackets over the heads of his human charges so Asmodeus's brilliance in her true form will not damage them even if they awaken. She is gentle as she can be with them, for this unknown little brother's sake, but she knows they are vessels and she wants to know whose they are. Her light infuses them briefly, delving in to that place where souls are bound in human shell, and ignoring the electric tingle of Castiel's remaining grace she feels within both of them. She is pleased to find her commander's true vessel unharmed, seemingly under this broken little brother's protection. _Such big accomplishments for you, brother. Truly I will sing Castiel's praises to Lucifer._

Reading the other human's soul confuses her, and then sends her into peals of laughter, beautiful and deadly and ringing through the cavern. Castiel is holding the Righteous Man – Michael's true vessel – and he has _claimed_ him from Michael, like overwriting on the intent of this man. Castiel has _stolen the Michael Sword_. He has bonded himself to the human, sealed them for eternity, and not just _any_ human…the one true vessel of the commander of Heaven's Army, responsible for her imprisonment. It's hysterically funny, and so bold she doubts even she would have had the nerve to do it.

He is indeed her new most favorite, most audacious brother.

They have much to offer each other.


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

  
_Shouting gun, on the run through the endless day._  
_On they fight, are they right? Yes, but who's to say?_  
_For a hill men would kill. Why? They do not know._  
_Stiffened wounds test their pride._  
_Men of five, still alive through the raging glow_  
_Gone insane from the pain that they surely know._  
_For whom the bell tolls, time marches on._  
_For whom the bell tolls._

"For Whom The Bell Tolls" – Metallica

* * *

The fire has guttered out with the ritual: all light has fled the cave with the departure of the angels, leaving an oppressive, suffocating darkness, and in that dark all Castiel can feel is the cold. It seeps from the rocks below him, steals through the air and folds around him as if welcoming him. He embraces the cold, drawn in on himself. He's near enough to the Winchesters to touch them, but doesn't allow himself that comfort.

He doesn't _deserve_ that.

Dean wakes first. Even without sight he would recognize the timbre of the quiet groan, can determine the difference between one shuffling body and the other, and as Dean scrabbles upright on the cave floor the elder Winchester calls out: always reassuring himself of their presence, thinking of their wellbeing first.

"Sam! Cas?"

"'M here." Sam slurs, and Castiel can feel the air move as Sam thrusts himself bolt upright, remembering everything, sharp mind digging through the memories, lining them up, reordering them.

"Cas!" Dean's hand closes on Castiel's bare ankle, skims up over the rough denim of his jeans, fingers closing on his bare shoulder.

"Hello, Dean." Castiel eventually offers, because it would be wrong to leave Dean worrying, but the words come from far away and long ago, and he rests his forehead against his knees again.

Sam produces a lighter from somewhere, and the Zippo grates and flicks in his fingers, and by the light of the tiny flame the two brothers look at him. He can feel their stares.

"Cas . . . what _happened_?"

"I should have let Gabriel kill me." This is not the answer either of the boys wants, and Castiel knows it. Sam stops his squinting investigation of the cave, shooting a look at Castiel that is half concern and half threat, their conversation on Angel's Landing too recent not to come to mind. Dean's eyes are too bright, too worried in the faint flickering light, and he drops into the darkness with Castiel, coiling an arm around his friend's shoulders.

"Sam, find our things." Dean's directing them both, taking charge, caring for them and trying to pull them through another of Castiel's messes, and the angel draws in on himself further, swallowing thickly, stiff and unyielding in Dean's arms.

Sam curses twice, tripping over the uneven surface of the cave, before he quite literally stumbles over their things, pulling out a flashlight from the possessions they'd lost when frisked down. The cave floods in pale yellow light, and Castiel closes his eyes to it.

"Cas, talk to me. Tell me what. . ."

"I opened the cage." Castiel isn't certain what else Dean wants to hear, what else there is to _say_. It's all very clear, to him.

" _Meg_ opened the cage." Sam's calm, reasoned tones are grating, and Castiel raises his head slightly to scowl at the younger Winchester, still rigid and immovable as Dean uses the light flooding around them to check the lines of Castiel's back for signs of the torture, running his calloused palm over smooth skin as if to reassure himself with touch, his hands shaking, mind racing, and his guts are in a knot.

"They offered me power and I _took_ it. I let them out. I have broken millions of years of protection offered to humanity and embraced their. . . _filth_." It's such a clear concept to him: it always has been. The world for an angel is black and white, good and evil, heaven and hell. It was only when he began to rebel, when he fell, that the world flooded with gray: but this brings it back into focus sharply. Their power does _not_ come from the Host, does not come from Heaven, any more than Lucifer's.

The Purgatory souls, in some way he was able to rationalize it to himself: alternative fuel sources, as humans would say. This. . . he knows what he is. He is _just like them_. In every way that counts. And now, he's proven he can tap into that same power that fuels them, through them. Michael _saved humanity_ from those creatures, at God's command. And Castiel released them again, and _became_ them.

The power has fled. The connection diminished. But he knows his place now, and he will never be able to clear that stain from his mind.

You can't wash away evil.

"Cas." Dean's pushed himself up to his feet at some point, and Castiel isn't certain if he spoke aloud, or how long he's been sitting there watching Dean scramble around the cave. He finds Castiel's shirt and discards it as a blood-soaked rag, and eventually he strips off his own jacket, draping it over Castiel to cover him. "Cas, you are _not evil_."

There's _nothing_ in Castiel's flat gaze that slides away back to the far wall of the cave, and Dean catches Cas's chin in his hands, a bruising force that demands Castiel look at him, capturing his stare insistently, refusing to be ignored. "Cas . . . trust me. I know evil." Dean is lecturing Castiel and Sam, and they're right back to the start, his first months as human, Dean arguing human concepts with someone who has never _been human_. "Far as I'm concerned, evil is when someone deliberately causes pain to an innocent, _knowing_ something is wrong but doing it anyway. Evil's a fucking choice. You didn't have a choice here. Not under duress."

Castiel stares back quietly, and there's something underlying the gaze that makes Dean cringe. It's not pity, but its close. Castiel fully believes Dean is attempting to convince _himself_.

"Cas, _listen to me_." There's a harsh note of command, drawing back on his father's influence, trying to drive home the point with orders, trying to tap back into that part of Castiel that is _hard wired_ to listen to commands, but Cas has fallen so far now. "This was _not_ your fault. You didn't _choose_ this," Dean is badgering Cas at this point, trying to drive home his point. Sam is standing stunned and feeling like he has fallen into some strange other dimension where his big brother sounds like a philosophy professor arguing the finer points of morality, and a cliff fell on them, and, good _God_ , why can't they ever catch a break?

"Listen to me, Cas. If she can coerce you into doing this, and that makes it your fault, then Cas," Dean's voice cracks, he takes a deep breath to steady himself. "Then Cas, all those souls… _ten years_ of putting souls on the rack. . . then that's on me." Dean swallows thickly, and Sam has never heard such a lost sound come from his brother as what he makes as he pushes himself to his feet, pacing across the cave to stand on his own by the ashes of the ritual fire, looking down at a dull gleam of metal on the cave floor. "Cas, I need you buddy. I need you to . . ." he finishes in a whisper, his words trailing off.

Alistair's razor sits before him, stained in Castiel's drying blood. Dean stoops down, wrapping his fingers around the handle numbly, and as he goes to stand finds himself looking down at expensive, polished black boots.

"I _do_ have some openings in your old job, if you're down there asking." The cockney accent, low and rough, rolls into sarcasm, but it's _fear_ that drives the King of Hell into the cave with them himself, skimming the space with his eyes, hands twisted together behind his back. "Bloody hell, I should have known it would be you lot. Isn't there _anything_ sacred with you?"

"What do _you_ want?" Sam's hand fastens over the weapons, acutely aware that Castiel is unarmed and a target, and that while Alastair's razor is drawing blood from Dean's palm, cutting deep, it will do little to the demon before them. On the other hand, at least the room's other two occupants are rising to their feet, displaying some manner of recognition of the potential danger of the situation before them.

"What I _want_ is for you lot to stop getting in the bleeding way!" Crowley's words end on a low roar, and he spins to face Castiel: barefoot, dressed in bloodstained blue jeans torn at the knee, Dean's jacket draped around his shoulders, hair matted, skin streaked with his own drying blood: the man who stares flatly back at the King of Hell bears little resemblance to the creature who had declared himself the new God and subjugated him. "These semi-literate morons I expected it from, but _you_. . ."

"They will hunt you." Castiel's words are flat, factual, fuel to the fire and Crowley's nostrils flare as he paces across the room, throwing a hand out to press Castiel into the cave walls with his will and his fury. Behind him, Sam tosses Ruby's blade to Dean, his brother catching it backhand out of the air while Sam digs for the Colt's bullets, carefully taken out of the gun and stowed by the demons.

With a flinging motion of his off hand, Crowley telekinetically slings both brothers back into the walls of the cave without slowing his pace, his attention fixed.

"You're damn right they will, and _then_ what? You throwing your lot in with them? We _changed the rules_ and you're just going to go back to the _script?"_ Leaning in, his hand closing around Castiel's throat as he drives the former angel down to put them nose to nose, Crowley watches as Castiel's airways close beneath his fist, blue eyes—the same eyes that had stared at him across a battlefield, that had looked down on him with impassive judgment, that had glared at him in hatred - widen instinctively as Castiel chokes. "I should have killed you years ago."

"Yes, well, that poses a problem for me." Another voice drawls, upper class accent bored, and Sam's waiting for the BBC title card to roll on their lives as the cave suddenly acquires another brand of sarcastic British-ism. "Cassie may be a complete and utter cock-up, but I find I'm still irrationally fond of him. At least, as compared to you. And as we're both ducking out of the same war for this little Hardy Boys investigation, it seems poor taste for me to side with the delusional up-jumped hell-trash I'm at war with. I'm practically obligated to keep him alive _because_ you want him dead."

Castiel drops gracelessly at Crowley's feet, only one hand thrown out against the rough floor of the cave managing to save him from smashing face-first into the stone as the demon turns to face the angel perched casually atop the incline of shattered rocks that blocks the Winchesters' escape from the cave, angelic blade held loosely in his hands. "Oh, lovely. It's the cloud-hopping Eurotrash ponce."

"That wounds me. Deeply. I'm not certain I'll ever recover from that poignant and not in the least hypocritical slight on my character." Pushing himself to his feet smoothly, Balthazar's spares a short glance at the fallen Winchesters, at Castiel looking up at him, half-braced against the floor. "You're lucky _I_ volunteered, graciously and selflessly of course, to duck out in the middle of a fight in order to investigate what just happened here. I should have known it would be you three."

"That's what he just said." Dean grunts, pushing himself upright again and jerking his chin at Crowley as he hugs the cave wall, edging towards Castiel.

"Angels agreeing with me. Now I feel dirty." Crowley remarks snidely, but his attention is fixed, and with a turn of his wrist Crowley raises his own stolen angelic blade and the tension in the room ratchets even higher. Only a few short weeks back, Castiel had heard that blade slice into one of his brothers as Crowley expanded beyond the menagerie of monsters that Castiel had helped procure for him, and on to torturing angels. "You realize two can play at this game, darling. And the odds are in my favor here."

"Are they? I think for style alone, I have you by miles. Trouble being. . . _neither_ of us like a fair fight. You're _nearly_ as good at avoiding them as I am, which is why you scurry back under your shit-covered rock the moment Gabby gets close to you." They're circling each other, now, predatory and focused. Unnoticed, Dean reaches Castiel, Sam shortly behind him, and between them they haul the fallen angel back to his feet, pulling him farther back into the cave and away from the impending fight.

Dean wishes for the packs, for their emergency supplies of salt, but after a moment it's Castiel's hand that reaches out to him. Seeing Castiel's fingers wrap around Alistair's blade, tugging it from his hand, watching it draw across the inside of his forearm and bring blood welling forth again makes Dean scowl at him and snatch the blade back, resisting the urge to smash the honed edge against the rocks just for the sheer pleasure of watching it break. Castiel, for his part, turns to the walls, dipping his fingers into the blood and beginning the painstaking process of drawing protective sigils against demons and angels alike.

It's a better plan than gaping at the most sarcastic and incomprehensible (they couldn't be speaking the same language) show-down in history, so Sam mimics him, and Dean (still frowning) cups his hand to let the blood pool in the gash across his palm, dips his fingers into the deep groove, and joins them.

Dean's keeping an ear and half an eye turned towards the demon and the angel behind them, and even so the end of the fight surprises him: ducking his head down, his low and snarky voice going silent, Balthazar draws deep on that well from within him, and for the second time in the night the light of angelic Grace fills the cave, throwing deep shadows of Balthazar's outspread wings in long, snaking swaths of darkness along the cave wall, and suddenly there is ringing silence. The camp lantern gives a feeble pop, sending out sparks, and they're plunged into pitch black once more. For a heart-stopping moment, they're left to wonder the outcome.

"Balthazar!" Castiel calls out, his voice echoing in the cave, and a low, wry chuckle responds. When the world resolves again, Balthazar is crouched over the camp lantern, restoring their light to them, and in the harsh halogen his face seems drawn, without any of its usual humor and verve.

"A _little_ faith in me, Cassie. I may take great pains to avoid pain, but I'm not a coward and I am hardly inept. I simply reminded Crowley that the archangel he's pissing himself over was going to be much faster to respond to a favorite brother than the treacherous snakes he surrounds himself with would be to him."

"Is Gabriel coming?" Sam asks Balthazar, who shakes his head.

"Bluffing. One of my many extraordinary talents. We're in the middle of actually _winning_ a battle right now, and while I have no doubt Gabby would come running if I called, considering I am the _only_ other person in Heaven with a sense of humor and it would be a true tragedy to lose that . . . bringing any of the angels here would end badly for you lot. Those two. . . they're going to try to pop Lucy back out of his Cage, and Michael with him. Start the Apocalypse all over again. You really screwed it up this time, didn't you?" Rising to his feet again, Balthazar shifts his grip on the blade, watching the three of them carefully and there's a sense of sorrow to his eyes as he meets Castiel's stare across the expanse of the cave. "You know what I have to do. Finish it, Castiel."

Swallowing, Castiel closes his eyes and lowers his head, shoulders drawn in, and nods once. His voice is hollow, broken, and he can't look the angel in the eye as he raises his hand. "I'm sorry, brother."

"You always are."

Slapping his bloody palm onto the banishing sigil behind him, Castiel feels the warm, enticing wash of his own former Grace over his skin as light flares through the chamber again, his brother forcibly thrust back to heaven, snatching away with him the feeling of _home_.

The next time they meet, Balthazar will be there to kill him, not save him.

Castiel sags against the cave wall, and Dean steps up beside him, coiling an arm around his waist and drawing him down to sit on the floor. This time, Castiel lets Dean fold him up against his chest, wedged into his lap, Dean's chin resting on his shoulder as he patterns steady breathing, willing the angel to calmness. Castiel was just tortured for hours by someone who learned at Alastair's knee, like Dean did, was smacked in the face with his loss of self and family, and he's been struggling already. His voice is a low rumble that Castiel can _feel_ as much as hear. "We've got you, Cas."

Cas is aware of Sam sliding down the wall to sit next to them, leaning a shoulder against Dean's, offering _both_ of them unquestioning support, his long legs drawn up in front of him, arms slung across his knees, and no matter how much of Castiel's Grace left with Balthazar what matters of it is _here_ and so beautifully human, stubbornly refusing to let him go.

"Cas. . . do you still have any juice left?" Sam asks into the quiet a few moments later, and Dean raises his head to shoot his brother a warning glance that is slightly mollified by the earnest look Sam returns, asking him to wait for it.

"No." Letting his breath out in a shaking exhalation, Castiel straightens slowly and Dean reluctantly lets him go as he shifts, the three of them now sitting in a tight triangle, Cas supporting himself upright, his knee still touching Dean's leg. His voice is the low, gruff, faintly formal tones that Dean had grown accustomed to years ago, stopped thinking of as stilted and dickish, and started seeing as Cas being _Castiel._ "I was borrowing their power." The phrase is inadequate. Castiel presses pale lips together, brow furrowed, and begins again. "They infused me with some of their Grace, through the blood, to staunch the injury they perceived to my own Grace. The closest approximation is when I would heal your injuries, and trickle some of my Grace into you for long enough to close the wounds."

"And _through_ them you tapped into. . ."

"Hell." Castiel supplies dully, in response to Sam's question. Dean gives Sam a nudge that encourages him to get on with whatever point he was making and stop dragging Cas through the entire mess again. "They, like Lucifer, were thrown whole from Heaven. Unlike Azazel and the two hundred Grigori, the Watchers kept their grace intact, they simply fueled it on the souls of Hell."

" _You're_ not plugged into that power source, though. Or it wouldn't hurt you every time you manage to dig up some of the old mojo. You're _not_ like them." For some reason, Castiel finds Sam's defense of him harder to comprehend than Dean's. They've been friends for some time now, but have never shared the same bond. Castiel broke his psyche, turned on him, failed in him Hell. . . and he is less _biased_ than Dean, who refused to believe the worst of him even when it was staring him in the face.

After a moment, Dean speaks into Castiel's silence, seconding his brother. "Cas. . . just because Hell's Angels took you for a ride doesn't mean you have to leather up and join the gang."

There's a reference there that Castiel is missing, but the sentiment he understands. It takes him a long time to frame the words he needs to give in return, but Dean's become adept at understanding a contemplative silence and allowing it as one of Castiel's 'quirks,' and Sam is watching both of them carefully, as if unsure of how far to push now that _he_ is in one of their 'talks.'

Castiel nods, once, abruptly.

"You _suffered_ Hell, Dean. It was something inflicted on you. What Alastair made you become in the pit is not what you are, and you are not to blame for it." Dean has frozen, muscles locked, but something raw and broken flits through his gaze. It wasn't what he expected to hear in return: he didn't know if Castiel had even been listening to him, then. Castiel can't muster up the conviction to fully believe Dean's reassurances, but this. . . _this_ he has fought from Dean for the entire span of their friendship. "It was just another form of torture."

The grateful look Sam shoots Castiel speaks of brotherhood, and when Dean catches Castiel by the wrist and draws him back into his arms, Sam snakes a long arm over them both, a brief embrace before he rises to his feet and leaves them to their shared comfort.

 

 

 

* * *

 

Above ground, Zion National Park is in chaos. Bobby is there with the Campbell and LDS hunters, and together they pass themselves off as a team from Homeland Security. The park is still closed, but with flashes of their badges, piling in two large black SUVs which belong to the Mormon hunters they drive as close as they can to ground zero. What was once a monolith called the Great White Throne is now shattered white rock, a massive funeral cairn, like the monument at the Mountain Meadows Massacre site, and Bobby finds himself not for the first time terrified that he's standing over the tomb of his boys.

He calls for them, voice growing hoarse as they scout the area, and age and a bad hip don't mean a damned thing in this worry-driven search. As he scrambles over another spill of rubble and rocks, a voice calls back to his straining ears from a rock slide in the cliff behind the rubble.

"Here, Bobby, we're here," At Sam's voice, Bobby stops to offer his thanks to whom it may concern - because he doesn't know any more – he just knows that once again disaster has struck where the Winchesters were, and once again they  _survived_.

Working carefully as a bucket brigade, the hunters remove rocks from the cavern entrance. Inside Sam removes rocks with as much care. He's glad to have something useful to do because Cas and Dean are lost in each other. Sam snorts to himself. That sounds romantic, but what is going on with those two isn't. They are literally holding each other together right now.

Fresh air streams into the cavern, and Sam realizes for the first time that the air was getting stale. He's happy to see Bobby, but a bit puzzled over who the other men helping may be. He takes a break to join Cas and Dean. Assessing them, he determines they'll be okay for now; he warns them that Bobby has strangers with him - It's like watching a blind pull down over Cas's eyes, but watching Dean enlightens Sam far beyond what he has allowed himself to know of his brother. Dean buries himself – this broken man Sam has glimpsed - and puts on Dean Winchester, the hunter.

Digging them out doesn't take much longer. They load into the SUVs and form a cavalcade to the Latter Day Saints Temple in St. George where the hunters lead them through a back door, into a conference room in a spacious and high-ceilinged basement. Sam's glad it's not dark or damp. He's not sure he could stand that right now.

"I don't suppose a person could get a beer here," Dean asks, but the serious and unfriendly looks he draws from some of the hunters, makes him shrug and accept the glass of water. "So, uh, first of all, thanks for helping dig us out." Dean begins again, stops, shoots a look at his mentor. "You wanna introduce your friends, Bobby?"

Bobby does so quickly. "George Heywood and Jonas Wallace," he says pointing at the two who look like bruisers from the FBI. "This is one of their places; their church supports the efforts of their hunters." Sam jumps up to shakes hands and thank them again. Dean has a bandanna wrapped around his right hand so he just waves it a little, gives them a nod. "These other two are hunters from the Campbell Clan.

"I'm Roland Campbell; this is my younger brother Russell," Says the taller of the pair. "Glad to finally meet you two. But if you don't mind, I'd rather wait to do the getting-to-know-yous until after you tell us what the hell happened at the park."

Dean and Sam exchange looks. Sam can tell Dean is walking a tight rope trying to maintain his composure. Sam ducks his head at the beseeching looks in his brother's eyes, but with a brief nod agrees to be the point man. "We were checking out omens in the park. We got ambushed by some demons; killed two dressed as park rangers, got taken down by a group of them. Woke up in the cave at the end of some kind of ritual. Seemed to have got knocked out again. Woke up to find ourselves alone in there hearing Bobby calling for us." He watches the other men's faces harden with disbelief and anger. "Sorry if that's not what you want to hear," Sam says curtly.

"Any of you awake for more?" Jonas Wallace asks.

Cas stirs in his seat, lifts weary eyes to the hunters, and nods.

Wallace, Heywood, and the Campbell brothers look at the angel like they are not quite sure what to make of him. He doesn't look like an angel of the Lord should, they think, but on the other hand – he looks exactly like the monster that had roamed the Earth creating havoc. Castiel is aware that he is sitting there with Dean's jacket still zippered over him because his shirts were ruined. He has blood and dirt caked on his hands and face. His jeans are stained and torn. _This is not the best first impression I could be making_. Then he looks at the wariness in their eyes and realizes this is not the first impression he will be making. He draws in a breath to explain, but he's cut off by Dean.

"Any way we can postpone this after action report until after we take care of a couple things? We're bleeding, haven't eaten since I don't know the fuck when, and if I need a frikkin' cup of coffee," Dean drawls. "Plus, a needle and some dental floss – maybe a place to wash up before I sew my hand and Cas's arm up. That suit you, Bobby?"

Dean has thrown the question to Bobby – and pointed out some basic needs – because he wants to hear what the angel has to say first. So, yeah, he thinks, it's a stall, but he doesn't have any reason to trust the other men. And he wants to hear from Bobby why he's being asked to report to these guys like they have some kind of authority over him.

Bobby knows Dean well enough to know what he's thinking, but this time, in this current alliance, he wants Dean to play ball. "Can you all wait 'til I run out and get them coffee? – I'll vouch for them being friendlier when they're caffeinated. Dean, I need to know what the hell happened last night. The effects spread more than 100 miles in all directions." He turns to the LDS hunters. "You got a first aid kit around here I can borrow? A rest room? Maybe Dean here'll get his hackles down if he's being treated more like a guest."

Jarred into being a bit more hospitable, the LDS hunters call for someone upstairs to bring food, water, and coffee. The trio is shown a men's restroom with several stalls and sinks and handed some soap, washcloths and towels, then left alone long enough for Cas to update them, and for them to get washed up. With a little exchange, Cas ends up with Dean's flannel shirt – it hangs a little on his malnourished frame, but he feels better for not being shirtless, and for being wrapped in something of Dean's.

This time when they sit around the table, Sam, Dean, and Cas look more like hunters and less like victims. They've washed off the majority of the blood, dirt and soot. Dean has cleaned out the gash on his hand and has a hand towel wrapped around it. 

Dean tucks into his meal like it doesn't all taste like dirt to him and washes it down with bitter – but thankfully caffeinated – coffee. Through it all, he doesn't let his guard down: the only way out of the conference room is past the other hunters, and he can't help but notice that. While Bobby sits next to him putting ten neat stitches in his palm, Dean draws in breath and sums it up succinctly, just determined to get this over with. "Last night, a demon named Meg cracked Lucifer's lieutenants, Ba'el and Asmodeus, outta the cage they've been in since God stuck 'em there. They're hell-bent on kicking off Apocalypse 3.0. We. . ." he gestures between himself, his brother, and his angel "...couldn't stop it."

That goes over about as well as can be expected when you tell a bunch of hunters the world's ending. The conversation deteriorates rapidly, mostly over speculation of whether the two Hell groups will work together, whether Lucifer and Michael may be put back in play, and how much anyone can count on the forces of Heaven.

Heywood and Wallace shout down Castiel when he tells them not to wait for Heavenly assistance, and it's almost reassuring to see Castiel put aside his depression and draw on rage and indignation at being told the state of Heaven by two hunters whose religion has, in his mind, given them delusions of understanding greater than they actually possess. "They are my _brothers_ , I assure you I know them well enough to tell you that you are  _on your own_. They believe this war is fated, and my Father's uninvolvement in the world means you can't wait on him. If you rely on faith, and only faith, you are _condemning the world_."

But the LDS hunters do not want to agree, saying the problem was in Cas's relationship with Heaven and his disobedience to the position he was given. Dean has to be restrained by Sam from going over the table after them.

"I'd like to have seen you do any better than we did," Dean spits out the words. "Cas, me, my brother …. We averted the end of the world already. It ain't our damn fault that the Earth seems to want to end."

Wallace puffs up like a peacock. "If you'd be obedient. If you'd say yes to your destiny…"

"Fuck _destiny,_ and fuck you, buddy." It's about to come to blows, and Sam and Bobby keep a hand apiece on Dean's shoulders, shoving him down into his chair when he moves to rise. 

He doesn't know what the hell they've heard about the Winchesters' "destiny," or how, but screw them all for bringing it up and for judging all three of them for what they've had to do to save the damn world. At about that point, the Campbell brothers bustle the group out the door, past the LDS and practically throw Bobby, Cas, Dean, and Sam into the back of the seven passenger SUV. The tires squeal away as the four in the back try to get situated.

"Sorry about that," Roland, the driver, says. "That went south faster than I expected – though I will tell you that reports of you having your father's temper are pretty justified." He says to Dean with a grin. "If you all will settle in, I will do my best to get us the hell out of Dodge. Those LDS hunters can get people on us pretty damned quickly – and I'd rather not let them try to force you into saying yes if you don't want to."

"Russell and I are pretty rested. We'll split the drive if you guys want to get some shut eye."

"Now, Hang on a minute here," Bobby growls. "We got cars and stuff back there."

The Campbells explain they had called in reinforcements. The Impala, Bobby's truck, and all their camping gear is headed for the same place they are.

"Oh, yeah, and where's that?" Dean is still terse, still wound up by the argument and riled up by bullshit talks of destiny and the entire damned day is crashing down on him now. Their next words, unfortunately, keep the blows coming.

"We've got a Campbell family compound we can head to. Safe haven of sorts. Camp Chitaqua."

A chill falls over Dean, and the world seems to lurch.

 

* * *

 

**_No matter what choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up... here._ **


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

 

_I'm keepin' my faith, I've made up my mind_  
_I've got nothin' left to lose, just lay it on the line_  
_I'm keepin' my faith, yeah I'll find the one_  
_Who won't steal me blind, who won't turn and run_  
_I'm keepin' my faith, I'm trustin' in you_  
_So don't treat me like those other ones do_  
_Ain't no gettin' round it, tell me to my face_  
_Do you think I'm a fool for keepin' my faith in you_

\- "Keeping the Faith" by Lynyrd Skynyrd

* * *

"Camp Chitaqua?"

They're still miles away from the compound, and Dean hasn't felt fear like this since he caught yellow fever. This time he _wishes_ he could blame something like illness for this horrible dread clawing up his gut. Dean is so pale his freckles look painted on, and he can taste the sharp tang of bile on his tongue as his stomach flips.

"Dean?" It's Bobby's voice that shakes him, lips tugged down into a concerned frown as he reaches up to tip his hat back, taking in Dean's sudden turn from the seat behind him. "You got something you want to share with the rest of the class?"

Bobby had _died_ by 2014. The sickening reality of that brings Dean back to the present, and he turns to take in Cas as his angel watches listlessly out the window, and his brother whose brow is furrowed, staring back at him. "This is the camp we were using in 2014." He grows silent because his throat is too constricted to speak but his eyes latch onto his brother's, pleading with him. "We can still make this different," he forces the words through hoarsely. "We can," he half commands, half pleads with his brother and his angel, as Cas finally turns to him and Sam blinks.

"Alright, anyone want to fill in for those of us who aren't fluent in crazy what the hell that means?" Bobby is tired, old, and grumpy and sounds it.

Sam, too, is looking shell shocked, but he complies. "Back when they were trying to get Dean to say yes, Zachariah zapped Dean forward five years to 2014. He did it so Dean could see the end, and convince him us fighting the archangels was going to just end badly. Lucifer had unleashed the Croatoan virus, and the world was falling apart I guess."

In the front of the van, both Campbells are attempting to remain innocuous, but they're listening intently, letting the silence linger uninterrupted as Sam holds his head in his hands – the thundering in the veins pulses like a jackhammer through his head. Shit. He doesn't want to believe this is happening.

Castiel, for his part, rests a hand lightly over Dean's on the seat of the SUV between them, the sole indicator that he's paying attention, staring off with a faint frown as he contemplates the implications. He's fairly certain no one would appreciate his view, right now.

"This camp, this future. . .  I'd said yes to Lucifer and lost, and he took over. In 2014 Lucifer, with me as his vessel, kills Dean." Sam he lifts his anguished eyes to his friend and mentor, and Dean finishes the thought for him.

"Lucifer told me we'd always end up here. That no matter what we did, we were going to end up losing here in 2014."

 

 

 

* * *

 

The battered wooden sign is identical, letters carved into the uneven wooden plank spanning two posts, welcoming the SUV into its chain length gates as night falls on perhaps the least auspicious New Year's Day in the already fairly bleak lives of the Winchesters. Dean couldn't help but look at the fortifications on the camp, noting differences, places that weren't cleared back well enough, at the spacing on the lights at the perimeter and areas where there should be manned guard posts.

Things he knew his future self must have changed on taking command. The HGTV shows he had lived through in his year with Lisa made a big deal out of a sure sell if the buyer could envision themselves in the space, see the improvements, but Dean _isn't buying._

He isn't buying shares in this future, or this place, or these people.

Risa harangues the Campbell brothers for not stocking up supplies as soon as they get out of the SUV, with all the charm and warmth Dean remembers of her future self, and ends by rolling her eyes and telling them to get up to the main house while she waits for the Impala, Bobby's truck, and their gear to show up with the next group.

(Dean is silent through the introductions: he sent this woman callously to her death, and lied to her face the entire time).

They make their way up a wooden porch to a solid door where Dean remembers only wooden beads, and some part of him takes comfort in that. Dean can feel Castiel hesitate at the doorway. He knows that the fallen angel has been trapped and bound and crammed into the confines of an unfamiliar vehicle for hundreds of miles, and that the claustrophobia he found in humanity was likely quailing at being brought back into closed quarters, but part of him wonders if some remnant of a divine creature who had been able to slip through time himself recognizes a place that he had, would, and never should, call his home at the end of the world.

The low tables are gone, the candles and Buddhist statues replaced with rough-hewn furniture, and there is a couch and a coffee table where Dean remembers only a king-sized bed having shamelessly been placed in the main room, the primary focus of the entire cabin.

A twenty-something blonde named Jane slides food in front of them, and Dean scrubs a hand over his eyes and then stares at his plate as she hugs her father, Russell, briefly before being sent on to deal with a group of children gathering outside, too old to be her own.

(He will never spend a night in her cabin.)

Castiel, with his matted hair and his loose borrowed jacket and hollow stare seems to have fallen right out of Dean's nightmares of this place, though, and he can't _look_ at him, though he knows he should, knows that Castiel is probably taking his avoidance the wrong way. But though Sam is similarly withdrawn, though Bobby is frowning at all three of his boys with a look that crosses paternal concern and irritation at being left to pick up the slack in feeling these folks out. Dean can take comfort in Bobby and Sam's presence, even if he can't look at Cas: they are _proof_ that things have changed.

(Bobby's house is gone: Dean will never find a battered and bullet-riddled wheelchair there, and the cantankerous old coot who means so damned much to them _will_ live through this.)

"Okay, so what's their end goal?" Russell and Roland, for as much as Dean wants to hold it against them that they are Campbells, that they're part of this mysterious pain in the ass family that has nothing on him but blood, and distant relation at best, seem to be fairly sharp hunters. They're coaxing answers out of Castiel, out of Bobby, out of Sam, and putting together the game board for themselves adroitly. A pair of brothers who go out on the road, hunt monsters, and come back home to the compound and apparently have families and lives of their own while they're at it, and if it's in some freaky Koresh Branch Davidian Waco place well. . . at least they were armoring up for the right reasons.

He can see where he could have (did, would, will, tenses were a pain in the ass right now in this Marty McFly back to the future crap) ended up here.

"Ba'el is on his way to Hell, to seek out the Pit. His presence will likely split the forces of Hell, which was Meg's intent." Castiel is staring at the surface of a too-bitter coffee he will likely never finish, and he's stooped low enough that he can see his breath disturbing the surface of it, ripples in the ink-black beverage. "Asmodeus will search the Earth, attempt to garner what differences millenniums have made. In the end, though . . ." Raising his head, Castiel looks at the Campbells rather than his Winchesters, rather than Bobby, and he bites each word off precisely. "They are Lucifer's most loyal siblings, and they will want to free him and free Michael, in order to put the 'plan' back into action. As I said: they intend to restart the Apocalypse."

The words fall into a silent room: there is no outrage, no immediate denial, and no surprise. Neither of the Winchesters can feign astonishment at this point. Sam's knuckles are white as he grips the coffee mug before him. Dean stares at the table with a sort of blank, glazed look, caught in his own memories of the future.

_I win. And so. . . I win._

_See you in five years, Dean._

"I . . . need to think." When Castiel excuses himself abruptly, slipping out to the porch, Sam turns a glare on his brother, kicking him in the ankle under a table that sits precisely where later there would be pillows and soft rugs and incense and talk of orgies (but that will never happen, because he has no intention of sharing).

"And I need to talk to Dean a second." Sam says to no one in particular, drawing both Campbell brothers and Bobby's eyes, but he clamps a hand around Dean's arm and hauls him to the adjoining room (bunk beds, currently: Dean expects those won't be there forever, though. . . he wonders how the future Castiel used the small space, if there had been some spark of him that still needed to get _away_ even then, and have a place to retreat to).

Dean feels so weary that his bones ache. He really doesn't want any more bad news, either, and what else would Sammy be walking him off to the side to talk about? He pushes the door closed behind him with his foot almost absently. They're not far removed, and he can hear the low rumble of Bobby and the Campbells in the next room, but they'll have privacy. It'll do.

Sam looks like something the cat dragged in and spit into a litter box and rolled around a bit. "Why can't we ever catch a break, Sam?" Dean blurts it, knowing that he actually needs to get his shit together, get ahead of this …thing…that looks like it has up to two years – give or take - before it's coming down on them. And it's times like these when he wants a drink so badly he can taste it on his tongue and has to remind himself why he can't. For Cas. Maybe for all of them because it has to be different this time. "Say what you gotta say, Sam."

Sam frowns as he looks over his brother, considering, seeing both despair and determination in Dean's green eyes, and Sam feels so young and helpless again, like he's a little kid again coming to Dean with a scraped knee or broken toy. He wants Dean to make it right. "Spill your guts, Samantha. I'm falling asleep sitting here." Dean stretches to crack his back, and perches on the window sill now where he can look down into Sam's eyes as his brother perches on the edge of the bunk bed. He can tell it's going to be one of those conversations where he can't afford to miss a nuance in Sam's expression, but here he can still see Castiel out of the corner of his eye, on the porch of the cabin with his feet dangling over the edge and his head in his hands. Cas never has taken the thinking thing lightly, and Dean can't help the urge to keep an eye on both of them here as if they'll slip away.

With his eyes darting up from hair that's already growing shaggy again, Sam tries to come right to the point. "Cas says those two, Ba'el and Asmodeus, are going to free Lucifer again..."

Dean interrupts. "Yes, I was there for that conversation. It _just_ happened. Sam, skip the background."

Sam takes in a sharp breath, and expels it in a rush of words. "Do I have to say yes again? Or is one yes like a lifetime free access pass?"

Shaking his head, Dean throws in a snort and a slight shrug for good measure. "I don't know. I'm wondering too. Cas is still the best resource we've got on angels. . . We'll have to ask Cas later." Dean shifts slightly, and he doesn't let himself look at Castiel through the glass and the filmy curtain, doesn't let himself think of how much _happier_ he was last time they were in this position, just a week ago, Castiel nursing a cup of coffee on the front porch of a cabin in Whitefish and him watching through the window as the angel quietly reminded his family that they _needed_ Christmas, that they should put off the hunt. _This_ hunt. God, he wished they'd let that holiday go just a bit longer.

"I remember Cas asking for permission when he jumped back into Jimmy Novak, but that coulda just been him." It could have been Castiel trying to be fair, less dickish, still fighting to be what Dean expected of him even after the torture Heaven had put him through to pull him back in line. "Rafael was using a vessel that couldn't do anything but drool on his own."

But Dean isn't looking at Sam now, isn't looking at Cas. He's staring off, chewing on his lip like he does when he's sorting through things in his head. "We can figure when they open that cage, Lucifer and Michael will both be coming out and probably not real pleased with either of us." The pause grows long, but Sam can tell Dean is making up his mind about something.

"I need a promise from you Sam, and I'm serious here. You gotta promise me."

It's Sam's turn to try to read his brother's expression like the answers should be apparent to see. He frowns, sits up straighter to take away the height advantage Dean gained by sitting on the windowsill. "No dice, Dean. No promises. And I swear I will help Cas kick your ass this time if you try to say yes to Michael."

"Have you thought this through, Sam? If I say yes this time. If you say no. We can give Michael a slight advantage. Sam – 2014, man – End of times. We can't just hide and hope it goes away."

Sam surges to his feet, and looms over his brother, and his words are half plea and half command. "How about for once we just promise to stick together no matter what?"

"I can't promise that either, Sam. World keeps trying to end on us, man. I don't know what we're gonna have to do so it doesn't just... start this all over again on us, you know?"

It doesn't take long of a staring match before Sam stomps off, and it's disconcerting enough for Sam to seemingly give ground that Dean knows they can't be actually done with the conversation. 

Dean can hear Sam's gargantuan feet stomping through the house, hear the lull in conversation in the next room and Sam's brisk dismissal, and then the creak of the front door before he catches sight of Sam going to join Castiel on the front porch. There's someone else with a voice in this, and Sam is not above involving Dean's  _boyfriend_  in the argument again to get the upper hand before Dean can even get it in his head to deal.

"Sonuva..." Should have seen _that_ coming.

Pressing his thumbs to his temples, Dean pushes away from the window before Sam can gesture his way, and rejoins the Campbells and Bobby for the time being. He doesn't let himself reach for the bottle of scotch in the middle of the table.

But he really, really wants a damned drink right now.

(If they puppy dog eye him he may well need to punch one of them).

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

There's only so long a man can procrastinate, and half an hour of stilted answers is about all he can give before he goes to face the music.

The boards of the porch creak quietly, already battered wood settling and groaning with each footstep, when Dean perches beside Castiel on the front porch of the cabin, legs hanging over the edge, elbows braced on the wooden rails. Staring out over the desolate field, the straggles of cold-blighted grass yellow in the spotlights that spaced along the wire fence surrounding them, Castiel doesn't outwardly acknowledge his presence, though Sam glares at him from the other side of the fallen angel, standing on the steps a few feet away from them both, his arms braced on the stair rail and shoulders a knot of tension.

 _This_  is different, already. Sam had never been here, before, of that he was sure. And that future Dean . . . Dean didn't think the man he'd seen himself become would have sat beside Castiel silently and let him decide how to begin when he knew a fight was in the making.

After a long moment, Castiel lets his breath out in a slow, measured exhalation, and unfolds his arm, his fingers uncurling to offer something to Dean without looking at him. The pill bottle sits in his palm. They had been in Dean's jacket when he slipped it over Castiel's shoulders to cover him, and throughout the turmoil of the day Cas had found himself thinking of the apathy, the detachment he could buy himself with them.

"They're all there." He says quietly, and Dean's hand is warm as his fingers brush over Castiel's, slowly taking the bottle back. "You can count them, if you'd like."

It wasn't how Dean had expected this conversation to start, and for a moment confusion reigns, throwing him off of his planned defense.

"I believe you, Cas. Can't think of a reason I wouldn't trust you." Dean replies quietly, and he tucks the pills into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt, letting his eyes settle on Castiel's face now, taking in the deep lines that trace his eyes and lips, the furrow of his brow, and the achingly familiar quiet and hopeless laugh as he ducks his head.

 _I wish I could just. . . strap on my wings. But sorry, no dice._ Even without the drugs, that broken man stares back at him, as if he belongs here at Camp Chitaqua. As if he _always_ would find his way back to it. Dean _has_  to change that.

"Can't you, Dean? I can think of at least fifty million reasons you shouldn't trust me. And that's before any of the rest of this."

"Cas, this isn't the Purgatory Souls." Sam corrects him, again, and in _this_ at least the Winchester brothers can agree. They're all using quiet tones, all drawn together as separate from this camp and this life, and Castiel shrugs, a helpless dismissive roll of his shoulders, like it's not a matter of importance whether they accept the truth of his failures so long as _he_ does.

"Neither of you is saying yes to my brothers." It's a calm declaration, cutting past the distractions to the point of the matter as he's always preferred, and leaning back Castiel braces his weight on his hands, positioning himself where he can look at both of them and neither of them at once.

"It was never going to be plan A, Cas. . ." Now this Dean expected, he has a hundred answers to. Castiel turns toward Dean and cuts him off with a look, pulling one leg up and tucking it before him so he can sit sideways on the porch, looking at the hunter. Dean had been braced for anger, or pleading, or hell even standing up and reenacting the alley scene with them on a little more even footing, but he hadn't expected frank, earnest Cas, offering quiet reasonable statements.

"It's not a plan at all. You are not saying yes to my brothers because my brothers are not going to win free of their cage. Both of you are assuming that Asmodeus and Ba'el are going to succeed. After my fall, after the deal with Crowley, you nearly _broke my jaw_ teaching me that we deal with this together. You are many things, Dean, but I refuse to allow you to become a hypocrite."

"Cas, taking Lucifer out of the picture wasn't enough. We need Michael to _win_." Dean scrubs a hand over his hair before unconsciously mimicking Castiel's posture, and looking up over the fallen angel to his brother, trying to make them both understand.

"Dean, I'm not going to let you. . ." Sam interrupts angrily, but Castiel holds a hand up between them.

" _Stop_. Both of you. _This_ is our problem. You're both so eager to throw yourself into the maw of Hell for the other that. . ."

"Nobody talks that way, man." Dean mutters, though Castiel continues as if uninterrupted.

". . . that you give up too easily."

And _there's_  that anger. One statement managed to fan all three of them into it. Dean bristles, Sam pushes himself off of the railing and stalks over to loom down at the two of them again, and Castiel sits up, ramrod straight, daring them both to argue with him.

"Cas, you were _there_. You were _part_ of that plan, you knew it had to be done. . ." Sam protests.

"Right, because you weren't doing the same _damned_ thing to us. . ." Dean growls out.

"I had a _plan_ , Dean. It was not a _good_ plan, but it was a plan. Your current plan is to wait until we have already lost and then hope. . ."

"You three idjits going to sit out here yelling at each other 'til you wake the whole camp? I could go get myself a beer and sit back 'til this comes to blows so I can start taking bets?" Bobby braces himself at the doorframe, scowling at the three men on the porch, the portrait of paternalistic disapproval. "Or should I wait until you three finish deciding the fate of the world for all of us again?"

For a moment, silence greets him, before Sam huffs under his breath and forces himself to lean back against the table running beneath the windows of the porch, turning his head to look away from the rest of them, and Castiel ducks his head down to his chest, breathing in deeply, steadily.

"Good. If you're done being self-important asshats now, you should get inside. We'll talk about this over breakfast, _all_ of us."

Castiel unfolds from his seated position first, responding instinctively to command, and without hesitation he offers a hand down to Dean, waiting to see if he'll accept the gesture with far more gravity than the situation warrants. When Dean fits his palm against Cas's, letting Cas help draw him back to his feet, Cas lets out the breath he'd been holding.

Bobby rolls his eyes. Sam shakes his head. And Castiel looks at all three of them, his _family_ , and smiles faintly. He has one last thing to offer into this conversation, and he squeezes Dean's hand slightly to get his attention for the quiet declaration. "They will investigate the Cage, but in the end every demon in Hell will tell them that it is impenetrable. They will not find a way in. And that will lead them to the one person to successfully enter the cage. They will come to _me_."

He has Dean's complete attention, now, his green eyes widening and hand tightening reflexively on Castiel's.

"And _I_ intend to fight."

It's on Castiel to never let it get to the point where the Winchesters even have the opportunity to offer themselves up to his brothers. He's died in that cause before, and he is willing to do whatever it takes this time to protect his human family from that fate.

 

* * *

 

There's something strangely comforting about seeing the Impala out front of the cabin, whole and clean and in one piece, that goes beyond just the whole issue of 2014 and on to the fact that Dean just feels a hell of a lot better being at Camp Chitaqua knowing they could get out of there. He had the itch on the back of his neck that made him think they were being quietly trapped, that the Campbells were trying to get their hooks in, but Baby being in reach means they could blow this popsicle stand again.

When they figure out the sleeping arrangements, by virtue of Bobby calling dibs on the guest bedroom of Roland's cabin and declaring they can sort out the rest (he may or may not viciously and pointedly shovel down one last forkful of beans from the dinner on the table), Sam scowls at the bunk beds and the camp bed, and shoots a look at his brother and the angel.

"No use trying to convince you two to sleep in separate beds so I don't have to hear you, is there?"

Castiel responds by handing Sam his iPod and headphones, without breaking his stoic expression, and Sam sighs heavily while accepting them and his continued martyrdom for his brother's happiness.

"You could go try your luck at Risa or Jane's, but that may be moving fast even for us. Plus Risa can _hit_."

". . . I don't want to know, Dean." Sam mutters, and Castiel shoots Dean a look that is just possessive enough that Dean can't help but smirk faintly, despite the crap day they'd all been having and the argument they all knew was still to come. "You guys want the couch, or. . .?"

"The couch appears to be wider than the bunk beds." Castiel remarks, but Dean swallows, looking across the room, and shakes his head emphatically. He's not going to go sleep with the ghost of that damned king sized bed and its implications.

"It's longer, too." Dean picks up Sam's camping bag and thrusts it into his arms, where he shuffles the iPod to the other hand to take it. "You'll be more comfortable there. We'll just put the mattresses on the floor and keep the door closed. 'Night, Sammy."

"Shouldn't we talk about. . ."

"In the morning." Dean promises, and then closes the door on his brother and leans against it a moment, elbow braced on the surface, his head resting on his forearm, until he can make himself turn and face the concern he sees in Castiel's stare, the frank curiosity in the cant of his head, standing close enough that their boots nearly touch.

"This place is screwing with me, Cas." He says unnecessarily, leaning his head back against the door, eyes closed. "This was your cabin."

"Odd." Castiel remarks quietly, turning his head slightly to look at the front porch, the accommodations. "They called this the main house and it appears larger than the others and more secluded, with more amenities. I would expect this would be their leader's. . . _your_ cabin."

"Yeah, well, I guess future me figured you needed it more." Dean mutters, until Castiel presses forward, ghosting a hand across his jaw and stealing the bitter words from his lips, and he _needs_ this. Needs the reassurance of touch and how easily they slot against each other. This Castiel, whoever he became, Cas knows some fundamental truths about him from their shared past, and he knows what Dean fears will be their shared future. 

"I have been in love with you for years." Castiel murmurs against his skin, as he lightly ghosts his lips along Dean's cheek, peppering the curve of his jaw with kisses, a hand gently tipping his head to the side to bare his neck as Castiel nuzzles into the warm flesh above his collar. "I think I was in love with you before you could even perceive me, from the moment we touched in Hell, long before I understood the _concept_ of love as I do now. I will be in love with you until this body decays, and I will carry that love into the afterlife. With you." He has only been allowed this for one week, one week to say what he _feels_ to Dean without it being a taboo topic, and he is drunk on the power of it, now.

Dean groans quietly, catching Castiel by a belt loop, other hand pressing to the small of his back, trying to pull him in flush and silence him, but Castiel continues mouthing promises into his skin lazily, unhurried, a hand tucked between them to force distance and slowly unbutton Dean's shirt, revealing more skin to his lips and tongue, and he speaks between each hot, wet kiss, and his low rumbling voice sounds like _prayer_ , like he's pressing these vows into Dean's skin, branding him again. "I will not forsake you. I will not abandon you. I will never be unfaithful. I will never need another."

"Cas. . ." Dean gasps, as teeth scrape the join between his neck and shoulder, sharp and possessive, ensuring he has Dean's attention fully before he raises his head, meeting Dean's eyes again, his hands pressed hard against the door now on either side of Dean to trap him there.

"And so that future _will not happen._ No matter what traits or flaws we share, I will  _never_ become _him_." 

Dean's eyes lock on Castiel's, and he _knows_ that this is something they never had, that hollow future Dean and that shattered future Cas. Castiel had said _years,_ though, well into the history they shared with those other men.

_What? I like past you._

He wishes he could honestly claim he'd been blind to Castiel's affection, but he'd known even then. Everyone had known, everyone had mentioned it. Castiel hadn't learned subtlety until after he'd learned to lie. The Castiel he met here had been in love with his own version of Dean from the start as well, and it wasn't Cas's faithlessness that had shaped him in that future. It was _Dean's_.

It's a terrifying responsibility, knowing how much power he has over Castiel, how much importance Cas has given their relationship in his life. But it's possible that whatever shitty outcome lays in their future, Cas is right: too much has changed between them now for it to be exactly the same.

"I love you." Dean mutters finally, resting his forehead against Castiel's, eyes closed, wrapping his arms around Cas until the other man lets go of the distance between them, allowing himself be tucked into Dean's embrace, and after the torture, after the pain and the terror and the uncertainty, the thrum of Dean's heartbeat beneath his cheek, the warmth of him and the safety of it feels like _home_.

"I know." Cas murmurs against his chest, and tugs him back towards the bunk bed, pushing him down onto the lower bunk and straddling his thighs, only remembering not to smack his head against the frame of the top bunk when Dean tugs him back down towards his lips. "I don't intend to let you lead alone _,_ or to shoulder the whole of that burden. You will not give up, or fall back to torture, or abandon your brother, or harden your heart. . . "

It's not just Dean who holds the power to shape what they become in the future. 

Dean catches Castiel by the jaw and finally succeeds in kissing him silent, swallowing down the last of those promises. And for now, he _believes_.


	8. Chapter 8

Huddled on one of the concrete benches lining River Overlook Park on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Saint Louis, Missouri, a young woman breathes on her fingertips to warm them, as she watches the city's bedraggled Christmas tree pulled down by a team of utility workers, a dump truck backing into the space behind it, ready to cart it away. New Year's Day heralds the end of the Christmas season, the end of angels perched on trees playing harps and carrying wreaths, of people singing songs about them on every radio in the city, and their image plastered on anything that didn't have a fat man in a red suit on it. To say that the pop culture image of God's beatific winged messengers lost its appeal a few years back, now, would be a bit of an understatement.

Angels never come bringing 'glad tidings.' She knows that better than anyone now. Angels come hop a joy ride and then use you up and spit out the pieces. Provided there are any pieces left.

Claire Novak smirks to herself at her obvious bitterness against God's messengers, but, still, she's glad that these reminders will be packed up and gone soon. _Good riddance._

It used to be when her father first left she would pray to the Angel of the Lord Castiel, Seraph, Angel of Thursday and travelers . . . she'd listened to the conversations between her mother and her father, seen her father's faith and his eagerness to answer the call. Ever since her father returned and died saving her from being Castiel's vessel - well, she feels like there _should_ be a direct link, like some sort of door opened in her mind, but Castiel isn't taking her calls. It feels wrong to have once contained so much of God's Grace and now to be so empty. Empty and fatherless and – well, not exactly _faithless._ How could she avoid believing in God and the Devil? Empty and fatherless and _angry_.

When she lost her father, the Winchester brothers told her mother to run, so she lost her home, too. The only home she had had, one she had shared with her gentle and devout father in Pontiac, Illinois. Three years ago. Back when she too thought she was devout. Back when her mother could smile.

Claire likes the park where she can sit and look across the river at the Gateway Arch and downtown St. Louis. It's quiet, especially this time of year when the wind finds ways to trickle up jacket sleeves and freeze your ears even when you're wearing a stocking cap. Turning just a little to the right, she can see the Casino Queen where she works on the food service line at the Market Street Buffet. It helped out for her mom, who's currently working as a maid in the casino's hotel.

 _Castiel, do you even care what you've done to us? Took my father, reduced us to this. Living in the trailer park by the casino. I thought angels were supposed to be good and caring. Well, fuck you very much you prick. Amen._ Maybe it's blasphemy. She's not sure she cares, right now. His birthday would have been next week. The feast of the Epiphany. Some days she misses her father like a physical ache, and the holiday season always does that to her, and with his birthday following on its heels his absence hangs like a shroud over all festivities. He'd always been the one to lead them through the holidays, after all, with a smile and a prayer.

The grey skies coupled with the cold promise snow today, and after a moment to let the silence linger, to reaffirm the apathy she knew with certainty would be the response to her prayer, Claire gets up to start trudging toward work.

When the wind picks up, tossing the straight, fine honey-blonde hair she inherited from her mother around her in a silken cloud, when the light bathes over her, blinding and warm as summer and dried leaves dance and swirl at her feet, she wishes she could say that her heart didn't skip forward faster, that hope didn't catch her breath in her throat, but she'd spent the last three years begging for some answer, some sign.

She sounds years younger as she tremulously speaks into the fluttering sound, into the tinkle of bells like wind chimes in the breeze.

"Castiel?"

The laughter she hears echoing in her mind is unfamiliar: somehow lighter, less restrained than the staid, urgent voice that had asked her if she would help, asked her if she would stand and fight, if she would stand as God's shield, to deliver her parents from evil.

" _No, child."_ The voice in her mind is somehow gentler, sweeter, as it confirms what she already knows. This is not the angel she once carried. _"It is nice to find one of mankind that can still converse with the angels, though your prayer was a bit… harsh."_

 _Oh, God._ Claire's mind freezes, and she should have known better than to blaspheme, and now she's using God's name in vain in her mind while talking to an angel there, and her father _taught_ her better than this, especially already _knowing_ that it's all true. The words roll from her lips rapidly, breathlessly, as she tries to adjust her approach. The Catholic prayer for Angelic Assistance is a familiar one, after the years. "Lord Almighty, Creator of all life, thank you for creating the angels. As dedicated and faithful servants, they instantly act upon your commands…"

" _I am right here with you, Claire. You need not be so formal. Especially when I am here to make a request of you: when last I saw Castiel he had need of my help. He is weakened, battered . . . May I borrow your vessel to assist him?"_

Claire glares, and for a moment she knows she sounds like a wounded child. "Why should I help the angels? Help _him_? Where have you been while we were promised protection?"

Somehow, the ringing within her mind changes tone, mood, and the sibilant words harshen. _"It is almost the end of days foolish child. Can you not think beyond your creature comforts? I sense no actual hurt upon you. Now – here we are facing the Apocalypse. Where do you stand? Will you allow me to use you as a vessel or not?"_

Closing her eyes to the light for the moment, Claire drops her chin to her chest, daring to allow herself just this once to _hope_. "Can you. . . can you give him back to me?" Her voice is a whisper, a quiet plea, and the soothing bells roll over her again, honeyed and tempting and thick with promise.

" _Soon. I can reunite you very soon."_

Her voice is soft, catching in her throat, barely above a whisper. ". . . Yes."

Power spills forward instantly, greedily, a cyclone of wind flattens the area around her, and across the park three utility workers turn their eyes towards the electric snap and pop of lights violently bursting, only to have their eyes burned away by pure _light_.

In a moment, it's all over.

Earnest eyes open on a whole new world, blue as forget-me-nots, inherited from a man long gone. Raising her hand, she examines the vessel with pride: small and delicate and capable. 

With a pleased hum, and a smile on her lips, Asmodeus greets the new year.

 

* * *

 

_Then the jagged edge appears , through the distant clouds of tears._

_I'm like a bridge that was washed away; my foundations were made of clay._

_As my soul slides down to die. How could I lose him? What did I try?_

_Bit by bit, I've realized, that he was here with me;_

_I looked into my father's eyes._

_My father's eyes._

\- Eric Clapton, My Father's Eyes


End file.
